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COLUMBUS: 



OR, 



THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, 



BY GEORGE CUBITT. 




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PUBLISHED BY LANE & SCOTl , 

FOR THB SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION OF THE METHODIST EPISCOFAt 
CHURCH, 200 MULBERRY-STREET. 

JOSEPH LONGKING. PRINTER 
1819. 



till 

.C9S 



IN EXCHANGE 

Drew Theoloo. Si^m, 

' ncTl 9 1915 



PREFACE. 



The hrtj years occurring from A. D. 1490 
to A. D. 1530 included five events of a most 
remarkable character, — The Expulsion of the 
Moors from Spain, — the Discovery of Ame- 
rica by Columbus, — the Conquest of Mexico 
by Cortes, — the Conquest of Peru by Pizar- 
ro, — and the Reformation by Martin Luther. 
The first four are intimately connected with 
the Spanish monarchy ; the last, only general- 
ly so. On the condition of Spain, the four 
produced the most important changes. Why 
they produced not greater, is a question, the 
investigation of which will suggest instructive 
considerations to the student of history, who 
reads, not for mere amusement, but that he may 
the better understand the principles of th*^ ad- 
ministration of Divine Providence. X^ 

Of these four events it is the design of the 
writer to furnish narratives. He has com- 
menced with Columbus. The Expulsion of 
the Moors will probably be the last writte». 



6 PREFACE. 

His desire is, to furnish young readers, and 
general readers, with a series which will in- 
clude narratives as deeply interesting as they 
are instructive. He makes no pretensions to 
originality. His object does not require it. 
The materials are abundantly provided (espe- 
cially for the latter three) in the works of 
Washington Irving and Mr. Prescott. He 
only aims at condensation and suitable reflec- 
tions, that he may bring the histories of these 
most eventful occmTences within the reach of 
a numerous and important class of readers. 

He now furnishes the first-fruits of these 
historical researches. Should they be accep- 
table and profitable to the reader, the writer 
will say what he has said on presenting to the 
same classes, writings on other subjects, — that 
his labors will be amply repaid by the only re- 
compense he seeks, and that he himself will 
be thankful. But that this, or any other his- 
tory, may be read with advantage, it must be 
under the full conviction that the God of the 
Bible actually reigneth. 

London, April 1 5th, 1848. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

BIRTH OF COLUMBUS. 

Limited knowledge of the world by the Europeans — Discovery 
of the mariner's compass — Zeal of Prince Henry — Stonny 
Cape — Portugal — Birth of Columbus— Early history — His 
studies— First experience in navigation — Anecdote by his 
son Page 11 

CHAPTER H. 

MAKRIAGE OF COLUMBUS- 

Columbus in Portugal — W. Irving's description of him — His 
marriage— His cormection with the family of his wife — Resi- 
dence at Porto Santo — Probable result 21 

CHAPTER m. 

THEORY OF COLUMBUS. 

Columbus' theory of land beyond the Western Ocean — Tosca- 
nelli — Remarkable circumstances — Religious feelings and stu- 
dies of Columbus— Results 27 

CHAPTER IV. 

ACCESSION OF JOHN II. TO THE PORTUGUESE THRONE. 

The kindness of Columbus to his relatives— Perseverance under 
difficulties — John II. ascends the throne of Portugal — Im- 
provements — The Astrolabe — Columbus applies to the king — 
Trickery of Cazadilla — Columbus indignant — Death of his wife 
—Disappointments— Leaves Portugal— Sends his brother to 
Henry VII.— Result 32 



O CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

COLUMBUS AT A CONVENT. 

Situation of Palos — Franciscan convent— Appearance of a stran- 
ger— Conversation with the friar— Restilt— Remarks on casual 
occiurrences — Columbus leaves the convent . . . Page 40 

CHAPTER VI. 

COLUMBUS AT THE SPANISH COURT. 

Character of Ferdinand and Isabella— Columbus at their court — 
Interest taken in his principles— Exercise of patience— Trials 
— Donna Beatrix Enriquez— He meets vs^ith encouragement — 
Obtains audience with the king and queen— His reception— 
The king's orders to Talavera 47 

CHAPTER VII. 

PATRONAGE OF ISABELLA. 

Meeting of the council at Salamanca — Result — Objections of 
some to the theory of Columbus— His patience in answering 
questions and refuting objections— Council breaks up— Give 
their ultimate report — Eifect on Columbus— He rettims to 
Palos — Influence of the friar — Bartholomew Columbus — Friar 
pleads with the queen — Close of the Moorish dominion — Co- 
lumbus unaffected — His proposals to the king and queen — 
Talavera opposes — Isabella finally imdertakes the enter- 
prise 56 

CHAPTER VIII. 

PREPARATIONS FOR THE EXPEDITION. 

Zeal of Isabella — She suppUes funds — Documents signed — Co- 
lumbus leaves the court— Again at the convent— Notary- 
Astonishment of the people— Kindness of two navigators— 
The fleet provided— Rehgious acts, August 2, 1492 ... 68 

CHAPTER IX. 

COLUMBUS ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE. 

Columbus sails— Troubles— Arrival at the Canaries— Deception 
Signs of land— Still greater signs— Land seen by the Pinta 78 



CONTENTS. 9 

CHAPTER X. 

COLUMBUS TAKES POSSESSION OF THE ISLAND. 

Columbus lands— The inhabitants— Expectations— Importations 
of negroes — Slavery — Columbus resolves to pursue his dis- 
coveries—Leaves the island Page 87 

CHAPTER XI. 

EXPLORATION. 

Happiness of the crews — Arrival at Cuba — Inhabitants' common 
practice— Continue coasting— Desertion of the Pinta— Enters 
a harbor at Hispaniola— Soon resolves to visit another part 
of the island— Vessel aground- Kindness of the natives— Co- 
lumbus forms a plan to form a colony— Erects a fortress- 
Prepares to leave— Sails for Spain— Meets with the Pinta— 
Violent storm— Expedient to preserve an accoimt of his dis- 
coveries—Storm abates— Reaches Spain— Reception by the 
king— Arrival of the Pinta— The captain forbidden to appear 
at court 93 

CHAPTER Xn. 

COLUMBUS AT COURT. 

First act of Columbus after his arrival at Palos — Court at Bar- 
celona—The reception of Columbus— The recital of his ad- 
ventures — Provision for the management of Indian affairs — 
Heraldic honors and gratuity 113 

CHAPTER Xni. 

SECOND VOYAGE. 

Papal bull issued, 1493 — Ferdinand fits out a second expedition 
— Departure — Discovery of Guadaloupe — Fears for the colony 
at Domingo — Troubles — Leaves Ms brother Diego in charge 
of the people, and sails for Cuba — Columbus sinks into insen- 
sibility — Hostile Indians— Columbus prepares with his men to 
meet them — He assumes the government of the Island — Juan 
Aguado — Discovery of gold-veins — Disastrous voyage — Its 
conclusion— His reception— Unfortunate occurrence . . 120 



10 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

A THIRD VOYAGE. 

Sails and reaches the Madeira Islands — Trinidad — Arrives at 
Hispaniola almost blind— Deplorable state of the colony — Rol- 
dan — Ferdinand appoints a delegate — His arrival at St. Do- 
mingo—His arrest of Diego— Puts Columbus also in chains, 
to be taken to Spain — Reception by the king and queen — 
Ovando Page 141 

CHAPTER XV. 

A FOURTH VOYAGE, AND DEATH OF COLUMBUS. 

Sails from Cadiz — Conduct of Ovando on the arrival of Colum- 
bus at St. Domingo — Coincidences — Columbus at Cuba — Pre- 
dicts an eclipse — Effect on the natives— Conclusion of his 
voyage — Death of Isabella — Amerigo Vespucci — Last days of 
Columbus— Interments 155 



COLUMBUS. 



CHAPTER I. 

BIRTH OF COLUMBUS. 

For ages, to the more civilized nations of 
Europe, the greater portion of the world was un- 
known. All beyond the limits of the Roman 
empire was what the very imperfect maps then 
possessed stated it to be, Terra Incognita. 
Northern Europe was considered as barbarous, 
and its higher boundary-coast was little under- 
stood. Of eastern Asia it was only known that 
there were regions to the north and east. The 
Mediterranean shores of Africa, from Palestine 
to the " Pillars of Hercules," (the Straits of 
Gibraltar,) were, of course, known, and a small 
portion of the coasts washed by the Atlantic ; 
but nothing beyond. How far Asia stretched 
to the east, and what was beyond the west of 
Europe, if anything were beyond, between 
Portugal and the extreme limits of Asia, except 



12 COLUMBUS. 

the unpassed Atlantic, was as unknown as if it 
existed not. While navigation was confined to 
the coasts, and mariners dared not venture out 
of sight of land, such ignorance was sure to 
continue. The discovery of the "mariner's 
compass " introduced a new era. 

This most important instrument had long been 
known to that singular people, the Chinese ; and 
it is generally believed that Marco Polo, who 
returned from his eastern travels about A. D. 
1260, brought the account of it into Europe. 
Its European origination, however, is involved 
in obscurity. About the middle of the fifteenth 
century, a tolerably correct notion of the form 
of Africa appears to have been acquired by the 
Portuguese, probably by means of the trading 
Moors ; and some years subsequently, the Portu- 
guese, then a mercantile and enterprising people, 
not having been brought dow^n by the lethargy 
occasioned by priestly domination and long years 
of ignorance, were desirous of sharing the trade 
of India with Alexandria and the East. Expe- 
ditions, therefore, were fitted out for the circum- 
navigation of Africa. A strong impulse had 
been given to the pubhc mind by the patriotic 
zeal of Prince Henry, son of John I., and Phi- 
lippa of Lancaster, sister of Henry IV. of 
England. He had accompanied his father iato 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 13 

Africa, on an expedition against the Moors, and 
had received much information concerning coun- 
tries to the south, then aUogether unknown in 
Europe. The Canary Islands had again been 
discovered, and voyages were occasionally made 
to them, and from them to the opposite shores 
of Morocco ; so that the coast, from the Straits 
to Cape Bojador, was tolerably known. Leaving 
the court, he took up his residence near Cape 
St. Vincent, in full view of the ocean ; and there, 
with men eminent in science, he pursued his 
geographical studies, and fonned plans of disco- 
very. It occurred to him, that if Africa could 
be circumnavigated, a sea-road to India would 
be opened, and at least a share of its lucrative 
trade be diverted from the Venetians to his own 
country. He communicated to others a portion 
of his own enthusiasm, and many, who had 
hitherto believed that the navigation of the 
torrid zone was impracticable, and who dreaded 
the idea of sailing beyond Cape Bojador, began, 
not only to think it possible to extend their 
voyages with safety, but earnestly to desire to 
do so. Expeditions, therefore, were fitted out. 
The improvements already effected in nautical 
science were brought into practical navigation. 
Cape Bojador was doubled, the coast was ex- 
plored as far as Cape de Verde, the Azores were 



14 COLUMBUS. 

discovered, and Prince Henry, already antici- 
pating the results of the spirit he had thus 
roused into action, obtained, according to the 
custom of the age, a Papal bull, by which Portu- 
gal was invested with the sovereignty of whatever 
lands might be discovered in the Atlantic, as far 
as India. This enterprising prince, who was 
so far beyond his own age, died in November, 
1472 ; and though the impulse he had commu- 
nicated was diminished by his death, still, much 
of it remained in operation. Africa had been ex- 
plored, on its coast, as far as the twenty-second 
degree of south latitude ; and in 1487 Bartholo- 
mew Diaz returned from a voyage in which he 
had been enabled to discover three hundred 
leagues more of coast, and reach the Great 
Cape, which, in point of fact, he doubled in a 
storm, though without knowing it. He named 
it Cabo Tormentoso, or the " Stormy Cape." 
It was only when passed, about ten years after- 
ward, by Vasco de Gama, on his voyage to 
India, that it received its new and permanent 
appellation, — that of the " Cape of Good Hope." 
Between the crowns of Portugal and Castile 
there were frequent disputes, arising from the 
navigation of their subjects respectively. Mari- 
time questions regularly engaged the attention 
of the Spaniards ; and one of the high officers 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 15 

of state bore the title of " Admiral of Castile." 
Portugal was the more enterprising of the two, — 
perhaps because the more united. Spain, as yet, 
was tncmy raihev than one; and the contests be- 
tween the various sovereigns of the several States 
prevented all unity of action as to things with- 
out. Portugal was connecting itself with Africa 
and India, while Spain was moving slowly and 
unconsciously to the oneness which it had to at- 
tain before discovery could fix new gems in her 
crown. And at length, in 1479, when the "war 
of the succession " was ended, and Ferdinand of 
Arragon, and Isabella of Castile, reigned unitedly 
oyer all Spain, except the small kingdom of 
Granada in the south-Avest, to which the once- 
triumphant Spanish Arabs were now restricted, 
an agreement with Portugal seemed to shut up 
the only door through which it was believed so 
long that maritime enterprise could pass. Portu- 
gal renounced all claim to the throne of Castile ; 
and it was, on the other hand, agreed that, 
though the Spaniards should keep the Canaries, 
they should renounce to the Portuguese all rights 
of commerce and discovery on the western coast 
of Africa, and to the southward. Only the 
western Atlantic, therefore, was left to them ; 
and of stretching beyond its far horizon, no 
Spaniard then dreamed. Here, therefore, the 



16 COLUMBUS. 

progress of Spanish discovery paused ; nor was 
the idea of its revival, especially in the only 
practicable direction, ever presented to the coun- 
try, till the foreigner, poor, long neglected, and 
despised, Christopher Columbus, not only sug- 
gested the idea, but implored to be enabled to 
carry it into effect. 

Christopher Columbus, one of the most cele- 
brated names m the history of mankind, was an 
Italian. He was born at Genoa, about the year 
1435. His parents were poor, but reputable. 
His father was a wool-comber. He had two 
brothers, Bartholomew and (as the Italian name 
Giacomo is in Spanish) Diego, with one sister. 
Christopher was the oldest child. 

His parents were attentive to his education 
in youth. Together with reading, writing, and 
arithmetic, he made some proficiency in drawing. 
His mind, however, was most strongly inclined 
to geography, and he very early manifested a 
decided predilection for a seafaring life. He 
himself, in subsequent years, was accustomed 
devoutly to refer this to a Divine impulse, 
awakening desires, and directing to studies, pre- 
paring him for the work which, at length, he was 
the instrument of accomplishing. His father 
perceived his inclinations, and, as far as his 
abilities allowed, sought to give him an educa- 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 17 

tion suited to his disposition. He was sent to the 
University of Pavia, and was taught geometry, 
geography, astronomy, and navigation. He also 
became familiar with Latin. But he could only 
remain a short time at Pavia ; and much of the 
knowledge which afterward he evidently pos- 
sessed, was the result of his own diligent im- 
provement of whatever leisure he might, at 
different periods, be able to command. He 
stands among those who furnish valuable lessons 
to the young, as well as an encouraging example. 
Through subsequent neglect, the rudiments 
which he had thoroughly acquired would have 
passed away with his youth, and been of no 
service ; but he went on studying when he left 
school, becoming his own teacher, and resolving 
to be an assiduous scholar. He was thus the 
better prepared, through the vigor which exer- 
cise gave to his mind, to make the best use of 
the information he had received. His charac- 
ter, too, through his enlightened and sound 
judgment, became decided and firm. He ac- 
quired energy, and understood the right way in 
which it was to be employed. But for such 
early labors, he had never been the discoverer 
of the "New World." 

And his merit was the greater, because this 
improvement of the rudiments of knowledge 
2 



18 COLUMBUS. 

was prosecuted in the midst of the toilsome 
activities of the profession on which he had re- 
solved to enter, and in which he won such solid 
and abiding renown. He was only fourteen 
when he left the university, and commenced his 
nautical career. Of this portion of his history 
fev^^rticulars have been recorded. It is said 
tha e first embarked with a bold and hardy 
captain bearing the same family name, and who 
was distinguished for his bravery. The sea, 
even in the inclosed Mediterranean, had not 
the safety which navigators now experience. 
Piracy was so common as almost to be regarded 
lawful : those, therefore, who were engaged in 
pursuits peaceful in their real character, were 
obliged always to be prepared to defend them- 
selves against those hostile attacks, which were 
so frequent as to furnish subjects of regular ex- 
pectation. The Mohammedans, especially, were 
both powerful and enterprising. Discipline and 
courage were therefore almost as necessary in 
trading-vessels, as in ships purposely equipped 
for war. It was a rugged school in which 
Columbus, when scarcely emerged from boy- 
hood, had to learn the duties of a seaman ; 
but he profited greatly from the experience 
thus afforded. 

His first recorded voyage was in a naval ex- 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 19 

pedition fitted out, in 1459, by the Duke of 
Calabria, for the purpose of attacking the king- 
dom of Naples. Genoa contributed both ships 
and money, and many private adventurers were 
engaged. Old Colombo was among them, and 
had the command of a squadron. Columbus 
sailed with him. The services of the expedition 
occupied four years. In the course of it Colum- 
bus is believed to have distinguished himself, 
though the particulars have not been transmit- 
ted to later times. This is inferred from his 
appointment, at one period, to a separate com- 
mand. He was sent to the port of Tunis, to cut 
out a galley which had anchored there ; and he 
performed this duty with great resolution, and 
with complete success. 

Several years of his life, after this expedition, 
have left only very general accounts. He was 
chiefly employed in the Mediterranean, then 
the great water-field both of commerce and 
naval warfare. One anecdote has been nar- 
rated by his son Fernando. He was sailing 
with a nephew of his old captain, himself a 
furious corsair, so noted for his bold deeds, 
that the Mohammedan mothers of northern 
Africa used to endeavor to terrify their chil- 
dren, when unruly, by employing his name. 
On one occasion he laid wait for four richly- 



20 COLUMBUS. 

laden Venetian galleys, returning from Flan- 
ders. He fell in with them on the coast of 
Portugal, between Cape St. Vincent and Lisbon. 
The attack and defense were conducted with 
bravery and vigor, and many lives were lost. 
The ships grappled with each other, and the 
sailors fought man to man. The vessel in which 
Columbus had sailed, was engaged with a very 
large Venetian one. The combustible missiles 
that were employed set the galley on fire. The 
vessels had been lashed together for the com- 
bat ; and, as they could not be separated, both 
were soon wrapped in flames. The crews 
threw themselves into the water, and swam for 
their lives, though the shore was several miles 
distant. Columbus, who was among them, saw 
an oar floating near him, probably one of the 
large ones employed by the galley-rowers : he 
seized it, and, by resting upon it, increased his 
own buoyancy; and as he was an able swim- 
mer, he stood before long, though almost ex- 
hausted, upon dry land. Recovering from his 
fatigue, he proceeded to Lisbon, where he safely 
arrived. Some of his historians suppose that 
this was his first visit to the Portuguese capital ; 
but more accurate research, by later writers, 
has cast doubt on the statement. Washington 
Irving, on the whole, concludes that his going 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 21 

to Lisbon at first " was not the fortuitous result 
of desperate adventure, but proceeded from a 
spirit of liberal curiosity ; and in the pursuit of 
honorable fortune," at a place which, at that 
time, afforded " ample attractions for a person 
of his inclinations and pursuits." 



CHAPTER 11. 

MARRIAGE OF COLUMBUS. 

It was about the year 1470 that Columbus ar- 
rived in Portugal, being then about thirty-five 
years of age. "Washington Living, who has 
thoroughly studied the minute descriptions of 
him given by his contemporaries, and combined 
the scattered notices into what appears to be a 
natural and harmonious result, thus presents a 
description of him : '• He was tall, well-formed, 
and muscular, and of an elevated and dignified 
demeanor. His visage was long, and neither 
full nor meager ; his complexion fair and freck- 
led, and inclined to ruddy ; his nose aquiline ; 
his cheek-bones were rather high ; his eyes light 
gray, and apt to enkindle ; his whole counte- 
nance had an air of authority. His hair, in his 
youthful days, was of a light color, but care and 
trouble soon turned it to gray, and at thirty 



22 COLUMBUS. 

years of age it was quite white. He was mo- 
derate and simple in diet and apparel, eloquent 
in discourse, engaging and affable with strangers, 
and of an amiableness and suavity in domestic 
life, that strongly attached his household to his 
person. His temper was naturally irritable; 
but he subdued it by the magnanimity of his 
spirit, comporting himself with a courteous and 
gentle gravity, and never indulging in any in- 
temperance of language. Throughout his life, 
he was noted for a strict attention to the offices 
of religion ; nor did his piety consist in mere 
forms, but partook of that lofty and solemn en- 
thusiasm with which his whole character was 
strongly tinctured." 

While residing at Lisbon he became ac- 
quainted with the family of Bartolomeo Moriis 
de Palestrello, an Italian cavalier, who had died 
a short time previously. Palestrello was one 
of those distinguished navigators whom Prince 
Henry delighted to call around him, and to 
employ. He had, under his auspices, colonized 
and governed the island of Porto Santo, about 
forty miles to the north-east of Madeira. He 
had left a daughter. Dona Filipa, to whom 
Columbus became attached, and whom he soon 
afterward married. That Filipa de Palestrello, 
though a lady of rank, had no fortune, would 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 23 

seem to indicate that the union was entirely one 
of affection. 

At all events, his connection with the family 
of the deceased navigator was in perfect agree- 
ment with all his own habits of thought and 
feeling, and contributed powerfully to lead him 
onward in the path he had chosen for himself. 
On his marriage, he Ijecame an inmate of the 
house in which his wife had hitherto resided 
with her mother. The widow perceived the 
strong interest which he took in nautical affairs, 
and in their family conversations related to him 
all that she knew of the voyages and expedi- 
tions of her husband. She likewise put into his 
hands the papers which had been left her ; and 
thus Columbus was enabled to collect the valu- 
able and stirring information which he would 
find in the charts, journals, and other manu- 
scripts of Palestrello. To us who know the 
subsequent history of the great navigator, these 
domestic colloquies assume a very interesting 
character. The life of Columbus had hitherto 
been rough, as well as active, and we see him 
with pleasure at repose in the bosom of a family 
every way adapted to his tastes and principles. 
He had anchored, after a boisterous voyage, in 
a pleasant harbor, but with the evident purpose 
of refitting his vessel, and preparing again to 



24 COLUMBUS. 

put to sea. He pursued his studies, he drew 
maps and charts for the purpose of contributing 
to the support of his family, and sailed once or 
twice to the coast of Guinea. The family re- 
moved, also, for a period, to Porto Santo, where 
Palestrello had been governor, and where his 
wife had inherited some small property. It 
was in this island that his son, Diego, was born. 
In this almost barren spot, chiefly composed of 
basalt rock, the highest eminence being not more 
than five hundred feet, there would not be the 
confusion which so easily distracts the attention 
in a metropolis, and that metropolis a sea-port. 
Is it too much to suppose that here, ascending 
to the summit of the rocky hill behind the town, 
he would gaze on the vast expanse of ocean 
spreading westward, and ruminate on what 
might be beyond the waves that rolled before 
him ? In 1474, the scheme of voyaging to India 
by sailing directly westward, appears to have 
beea fully formed in his mind ; but it must pre- 
viously have often occupied his active and 
anxious thoughts. A sister of his wife's was 
married to another of Prince Henry^s naviga- 
tors, Pedro Correo, who also had at one time 
been governor of Porto Santo. With him, we 
may be well assured, conversations would fre- 
quently be held on subjects which not only were 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 25 

generally exciting in society at large, but which 
moved his own mind with such especial force. 
Already enough was known to fan the flame 
which was now enkindled. Imagination invest- 
ed India with wealth and magnificence, and with 
all the wonders of an unknown region : and who 
could tell what other regions, not less wealthy, 
not less wonderful, awaited the discoveries of 
science, skill, and courage ? The dream of 
Plato, respecting the island Atalantis, far away 
in the "Western Ocean, had been revived; 
and, especially among sailors, rumors were 
afloat, often far more exciting than realities. 
With none of these would Columbus be un- 
acquainted; and even his well-balanced mind 
could not fail to be moved by them. But he 
was too thoughtful to be governed by what was 
only rumor : he was only stimulated by it to 
more extensive research, and more diligent 
study. The grand object was, the discovery of 
such a route to India as might be safe to navi- 
gators, and profitable to commerce ; and, by all 
but himself, the direction in which this route 
was sought was by the circumnavigation of 
Africa : he conceived the idea, which ultimately 
produced the unconquerable resolution to work 
it out in practice, of turning from the difiicult 
and dangerous coasting-voyage around a con- 



26 COLUMBUS. 

tinent only partially known, and directing his 
daring course to the west, seeking to cross the 
ocean only known by the waves which dashed 
upon its eastern shores. We cannot dismiss the 
idea, that Columbus, at Porto Santo, formed 
his great resolution. Standing on its highest 
ground, and looking eastward, he would know 
that before him, from north to south, vast con- 
tinents stretched, teeming with inhabitants. 
Carrying his thoughts still onward, the exist- 
ence of the Indian regions was a well-known 
fact, and of India the eastern limits were un- 
known ; no geographer had drawn, from certain 
knowledge, the farthest sea-board line. Turn- 
ing to the west, where nothing but the ever- 
rolling waves met his view, and sea and sky 
seemed to meet on the distant horizon, would 
he not ask himself, How near does farthest 
India approach that line ? He knew it to be 
the limit of European knowledge ; but he also 
knew that it was no barrier to them who would 
boldly hold on their course to the far west ; and 
why might not he thus arrive, with greater 
speed and safety, at i\\e far east? Such, at all 
events, was the great idea on which his mind 
was brooding, when, after two or three years, 
we find him again at Lisbon. 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 27 

CHAPTER III. 

THEORY OF COLUMBUS. 

" Coming events cast their shadows before." 
Seldom does any great occurrence break on 
the unprepared minds of men with astounding 
abruptness. Unformed opinions begin to as- 
sume shape, and rumors multiply and thicken, 
till expectation stands on tiptoe, and looks for 
a something anticipated, but unknown. Long 
before the showers come down, the invisible 
vapor has been ascending, till the atmosphere 
is surcharged, and becomes hazy, and clouds 
small as the human hand begin to appear, and, 
by and by, unite to cover the heavens with 
blackness, and there is the sound as of abundance 
of rain. 

Even among the ancients, there had been 
vague suppositions of land far away over the 
western ocean. And when the true form of the 
earth had been ascertained, the geographers had 
endeavored to collect all that could be gathered 
from both fact and rumor to complete the map 
of the globe. Columbus had studied both the 
theories of the ancients, and the systems of 
modern geographers. Of the three hundred and 
sixty degrees of the earth's equatorial circum- 



28 COLUMBUS. 

ference, he reckoned that two hundred and 
twenty-five (fifteen hours) had been known even 
to the early geographers, and that fifteen more, 
in all two hundred and forty, had been added 
by the discovery of the Azores and Cape de 
Verde islands. From these, eastward, two-thirds 
of the circumference were known : one-third, 
from the farthest known westward point, to that 
by joining which the circle would be completed, 
remained yet to be explored. He thought that 
the unknown parts of Asia might extend farther, 
possibly much farther, to the east, and thus con- 
siderably curtail the distance over which it was 
necessary to pass. The Arabian geographers 
reckoned the degree to be much smaller than 
was usually thought by others ; and the opinion 
appears to have been embraced by Columbus. 
The real distance, therefore, would be, compara- 
tively, not so very great, and land might be 
discovered lying much nearer to Europe than 
was commonly imagined ; so that there was no- 
thing, in the estimation of Columbus, which 
might not be accomplished by science and skill, 
united to vigilance and courage. 

Such seem to have been his opinions in 1474. 
He communicated them in a letter addressed to 
a friendly correspondent at Florence, Paulo 
Toscanelli, a learned and inquiring Italian cos- 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 29 

mographer. Toscanelli, in reply, afforded him 
all the information he could give, chiefly derived 
from the narrative of Marco Polo, a Venetian, 
who, in the preceding century, had traveled into 
the remotest parts of Asia, ascertaining much, 
and, by magnifying the distance actually tra- 
veled, — which, in the countries and times of 
slow traveling, might very easily, and with no 
bad intention, be done, — conjecturing more. 
Beyond the extremity of the Asiatic continent, 
he described certain islands, still farther to the 
eastward, abounding in marvels and wealth. 
Toscanelli encouraged Columbus in his purpose 
of seeking India by sailing to the west; and 
calculated that, from Lisbon to these oriental 
islands, the distance could not be more than four 
thousand miles, a sixth, instead of a third, of 
the earth's circumference. 

Nor did the adventurous, but cautious and 
inquiring navigator, neglect to gather all the 
facts and rumors within his reach, extracting 
from them whatever information they might 
supply. He conversed with veteran navigators, 
and with those inhabitants of the recently dis- 
covered islands to the west whom he chanced 
to meet. He heard of nothing adverse to his 
conjectures ; and much that, in several ways, 
confirmed them. An inhabitant of Madeira told 



30 COLUMBUS. 

him that he had once sailed a hundred leagues 
to the west, and had seen there islands in the 
distance. Another told him, that once, in a 
voyage to Ireland, he had seen land to the 
westward. These were, indeed, rumors, and 
groundless ones ; but there were facts which 
strengthened the suppositions to which they 
gave rise. A pilot in the service of the king 
of Portugal told him that, at the distance of 
four hundred and fifty leagues from Cape St. 
Vincent, he had found a piece of carved wood, 
in the shaping of which it was plain that iron 
had not been employed, floating in the water. 
His brother-in-law, Pedro Correo, also told him 
that a similar piece of wood had drifted from 
the same quarter on the shore of Porto Santo : 
he added, that he had heard from the king of 
Portugal that reeds of an immense size had 
been washed on the same island, evidently from 
the west. Westerly winds had likewise brought 
floating to the Azores large pine-trees, such as 
were not to be found in those islands. But 
perhaps the most remarkable circumstance was, 
as stated to him by some of the inhabitants, 
that on the island of Flores, one of the most 
westerly of the Azores, the bodies of two men, 
different from any known race, had been cast 
by the waves. Everything seemed to tell of 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 31 

vegetation and inhabitants, and therefore land, 
in the far west. By investigation and study, 
therefore, as complete as circumstances allowed, 
his theory became fixed. And along with it 
was mixed a strong religious feeling. The un- 
known inhabitants of these undiscovered regions 
were men, human beings like himself, owing 
their existence to the same Creator ; but not, 
like himself, instructed in his knowledge and 
fear, his worship and service. Little was known 
of the countries of the east ; but that little re- 
presented the people, with the exception of one 
nation, that was reported to be Christian, as 
altogether devoted to idolatry. Among the 
studies of Columbus, the ancient prophecies of 
holy writ were, in some degree at least, in- 
cluded ; and these spoke of the ends of the 
earth as being brought to see the salvation of 
God. He desired not less the extension of the 
true faith, than the enlargement of geographical 
knowledge, and the improvement of science. 
His were not the wild schemes of the daring and 
reckless adventurer. They resulted from wide 
examination and profound thought ; and, being 
sanctified by religion, animated him with a noble 
enthusiasm, and communicated such self-pos- 
session and dignity, that, humble comparatively 
as was his station, he stood upright even in the 



32 COLUMBUS. 

presence of crowned heads. Loftier concep- 
tions and designs were never cherished by- 
mortal man. And they were his own. His 
calculations were based on knowledge attainable 
by all ; but he only, of all his contemporaries, 
had the patient industry which could collect 
and arrange them, and the capacity and power 
to embrace theu' vast results, as well as the 
cool, but indomitable energy and perseverance 
necessary to their effectuation. The very con- 
ditions he proposed, when his plans were formed, 
and he was ready to enter upon his stupendous 
task, disclosed the magnificence of his own 
mind. He was to take his place among the 
highest class of European subjects, winning for 
himself the patent of a nobility, in the splendor 
of which that of ancestry should grow pale, as 
the moon is dimmed by the brightness of the 
fully-risen sun. The supremacy of the sovereign 
who should enable him to accomplish his stu- 
pendous task, he would readily acknowledge ; 
but as viceroy of the lands he discovered, only 
to the monarch, to whose dominions he brought 
such marvelous annexations, would he be sub- 
ject. If ever man toiled to the summit of human 
greatness by a path first marked out by himself, 
that man was Christopher Columbus. 



DltJCOVERY OF AMERICA. 33 



CHAPTER IV. 

ASCENSION OF JOHN 11. TO THE POBTUGUESE 
THRONE. 

The enthusiasm of Columbus was as enlight- 
ened as it was grand. The sublimity of his 
conceptions as to the future, produced no neg- 
ligence as to subordinate and present duties. 
Contemplating at least the commencement of 
the final exploration of the world, he attended 
with diligence to the concerns of his family. We 
have seen that he employed his geographical 
knowledge in the construction of maps and 
charts, which he sold to provide means for his 
domestic expenditure ; and limited as these 
means were, it is delightful to see them so em- 
ployed as to exhibit the future discoverer of the 
New World as the dutiful son, and the affec- 
tionate brother. He contributed to the support 
of his aged father at Genoa, and to the edu- 
cation of his younger brothers. He sought 
employment, too, as a navigator ; and not only 
sailed more than once to the coast of Guinea, 
but voyaged, on one occasion, into the northern 
seas, visiting Iceland, probably the Ultima Thule 
of the ancients ; the difference between its actual 
position, and that which they assigned to it, 



34 COLUMBUS. 

being easily explained by the scantiness and 
obscurity of tlieir geographical knowledge. All 
the while, the great idea was brooding in his 
mind, acquiring form in his imagination, and 
taking faster hold on his judgment; but its 
progress toward action was slow. From with- 
out he had no encouragement : for anything he 
knew, his was the only mind in which dwelt so 
noble a thought. Nor was this by any means 
the smallest obstacle which he had to surmount. 
He was a poor man, and could not command a 
vessel in which to sail on his own account, in 
directions known to all. How was he to be 
enabled to fit out several, for such an expedition 
as that which he contemplated ? Less than the 
patronage of sovereign power would not suffice 
for the expense of the preparations, and for 
giving him the influence necessary to persuade 
a sufficient number of able and experienced 
seamen to accompany him in so hazardous, and, 
in some respects, so alarming an undertaking. 
An ordinary mind would long before have 
banished the conception, or only adverted to it 
in the day-dreamings of an indolent leisure. 
Not such a mind was his. He beheved the 
idea to be practicable, he cherished the hope 
of finding it to be so, and resolved to seek and 
await the opportunity of proving that it was so 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 35 

to the whole world. But he waited not in idle- 
ness. He was gradually forming his plans ; 
and when they were matured, and ready for 
execution, the Providence under whose secret 
movements he had been already acting, pre- 
pared the way for him to commence the pro- 
ceedings from which such vast results have 
already issued, and are still continuing to 
issue. 

In 1481, John II., grand-nephew of Prince 
Henry, ascended the Portuguese throne. The 
cause of discovery had long been languishing, 
thouofh alon^ the coasts of Africa there was a 
slow advancement. But with the accession of 
John came a revival of enterprise. The age was 
more active. Printing had been discovered, 
books had begun to issue from the press, and the 
communication from mind to mind of whatever 
knowledge might be acquired, was thus made 
more certain, rapid, and extensive. Knowledge 
became common property : all who possessed, or 
thought they possessed any, felt that they could 
impart it easily, and the many were invited to re- 
ceive their share. The general stagnancy of the 
human intellect had passed away, never to re- 
turn : and ignorance, by becoming avoidable, had 
become criminal. A passion for foreign research, 
-similar to that which had governed his uncle, 



36 COLUMBUS. 

influenced John. India was no longer a coun- 
try beyond European reach ; and the accounts 
received from it, true, exaggerated, or fabulous, 
in a mind like that of John, aroused curiosity, 
and stimulated research. Earnestly desirous of 
opening India more fully to Portuguese explora- 
tion, he summoned around him men of science, 
especially those who were eminent in geography; 
and sought from them the means of greater cer- 
tainty in navigation. One result of their inves- 
tigations was the application of the astrolabe — 
the instrument by which the altitudes and angu- 
lar distances of the heavenly bodies, as visible, 
particularly during the night, on the concave 
hemisphere, were measured — to the purposes 
of the voyager. This has since been reduced 
to the modern quadrant ; but its most important 
advantages were from the first secured. The 
navigator was enabled, though in the beginning 
somewhat roughly, to measure his progress 
through the pathless ocean, by observing the ap- 
parent alterations of altitude, distance, and posi- 
tion among i3lanets and stars. It henceforth, 
connecting this with the compass, became safe 
to voyage out of sight of the hitherto limiting 
landmarks. The compass exhibited the direc- 
tion in which the vessel was sailing, while the 
astrolabe enabled the hardy mariner to sail by 



DISCOVERY OE AMERICA. 37 

ihe sky-marks presented by the lofty heavens 
above him. The hazard which had thus been 
the greatest obstacle in the way of Columbus, 
seemed now to be removed; and knowing the 
wishes of the Portuguese Sovereign, he resolved 
to apply to him. And never was there a more 
commanding proof of the validity of the moral 
axiom, that "honesty is the best policy," than 
was exhibited by the result of the application of 
Columbus to the King of Portugal. A piece 
of real trickery prevented him from placing in 
his crown a jewel richer than any which adorn- 
ed it. The proposal was referred by the Mo- 
narch to three of the most learned of his Coun- 
cillors, one of them a Bishop, and his Confessor. 
By them it was represented as visionary; but 
it was too much in accordance with the feelings 
of John to be easily renounced : he therefore con- 
voked a larger assembly, requiring a full discus- 
sion of the question. The opinion of Cazadilla, 
the Bishop, prevailed here, as it had done before, 
and the King was advised to dismiss Columbus. 
Cazadilla, however, saw that John was not satis- 
fied : he therefore craftily suggested a plan by 
which some trial might be given to the proposal 
of Columbus, without committing the dignity of 
the crown to that which might be no better than 
an idle dream. As if to assist them in their de- 



38 COLUMBUS. 

liberations, they procured from Columbus as 
much information as thej judged to be sufficient 
for their purpose ; and, holding him in suspense 
as to their ultimate decision, orders and instruc- 
tions were sent to the Cape de Verde islands, 
for a small vessel to pursue for some distance 
the intended route of the skilled and courageous 
navigator. The vessel left the islands, and sailed 
to the westward for several days. The weather 
then became stormy ; and the wild rolling and 
tossing of the mighty assemblage of billows, es- 
pecially as lashed by the winds till their fury 
seemed every hour to be increasing, so terrified 
both master and crew, that they retraced their 
way, and rejoiced to find themselves in safety at 
the place they had left not long before. They 
then proceeded to Lisbon, and by means of their 
real fears, and their desires to excuse themselves, 
and prove that they had done right in desisting 
from their onward course, they so magnified the 
perils to which they said they had been exposed, 
that Cazadilla proceeded in triumph to the King 
with this decisive confirmation of his former 
opinion. 

But this conduct could not be concealed from 
Columbus. Still believing the correctness of 
his opinions, he was indignant that such an in- 
efficient method of demonstrating their imprac- 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 39 

ticability had been employed ; and still more in- 
dignant that the method involved an attempt to 
cheat him out of the honor and benefits which, 
if attainable, properly belonged to himself. Be- 
sides, his circumstances had become painfully em- 
barrassing. His private studies had interfered 
with his plans for obtaining a livelihood; his 
wife was dead, leaving him a widower, with his 
son Diego, then a mere child. Portugal had 
now no tie on him ; and not even some disposi- 
tion said to be manifested on the part of John 
to renew the negotiation, could induce him to 
continue there. Taking Diego with him, there- 
fore, toward the close of 1484, he departed from 
Portugal ; and thus its unwise Monarch, by list- 
ening to the counsel, both foolish and dishonest, 
of his courtiers and ecclesiastics, lost forever the 
opportunity of securing the object of his strongest 
desires, — an object unlike most of those on which 
human desires are generally fixed, proving even- 
tually to be far more splendid in its realization 
than in its first conception. 

This portion of the history of Columbus may 
well be closed by tracing — it is all that can be 
done — the little more than dimly-seen traditiona- 
ry recollections which are supposed to be appa- 
rent in the cloud that hangs over the following 
year. It is said that from Lisbon he proceeded 



40 COLUMBUS. 

to Genoa, where he renewed his applications ; 
and, being unsuccessful, thence to Venice, where 
he was also disappointed ; and from like causes 
in both instances. Both republics were in a de- 
clining and critical state, and had not the spirit, 
nor indeed the ability, to comply with the pro- 
posals that were made to them. At Genoa, his 
father was still living ; and for him, in his ex- 
treme age, he made such provision as his circum- 
stances allowed. About the same time, he is 
believed to have sent his brother Bai'tolomeo to 
England, to endeavor to engage Henry VII. in 
his plans; then renowned throughout Europe 
for his opulence and prudence ; but who seems 
to have been too prudent to hazard the expense 
where the gain was not certain. The great man 
of his age then disappears altogether from view, 
and is only seen as emerging from the darkness 
of the cloud that overshadowed him. 



CHAPTER V. 

COLUMBUS AT A CONVENT. 

The southern boundary of Porhigal is a coast- 
line which extends about two degrees to the east- 
ward of Cape St. Vincent ; the coast then in- 
clines to the south-east, toward the Straits of 



DISCOVERT OF AMERICA. 41 

Gibraltar, Cadiz being distant about sixty miles, 
on what, in the maps, is the obtuse angle thus 
formed. The Portuguese boundary reaches to 
within twenty or twenty-five miles from this cor- 
ner. There is here a small sea-port, — Palos de 
Moguer, in Andalusia, — inhabited, at the times 
to which we are now referring, chiefly by a fish- 
ing, and so far a maritime population. A short 
distance from Palos, on a solitary height over- 
looking the sea-coast, there stood (and still 
stands) an ancient Franciscan convent, dedicated 
to Santa Maria de Rabida. In those days and 
countries, the distribution of alms at the gate of 
convents was a regular practice. Whether this 
was the best way of supplying the wants of the 
poor, according to the principles of a correct po- 
litical economy, in a well-arranged nation, is a 
question with which we have here nothing to 
do. It might be an erroneous proceeding, and 
connected, in its exercise, with errors in reli- 
gious doctrine ; but it was designed to be an utter- 
ance of Christian compassion ; and if sometimes 
the idle, and even the dishonest, shared in the 
bounty which was neither provided nor intended 
for them, so that sloth and a dependent mendi- 
cancy were encouraged; on the other hand, 
many of the honest poor received the assistance 
which they needed ; and the blessings of many 



42 COLUMBUS. 

that were ready to perish came upon these dis- 
tributors, whose meaning was good, whether or 
not the practice were wise. 

One day, toward the latter end of the year 
1485, a stranger, evidently a foreigner, meanly 
clad, but of superior manners, on foot, accom- 
panied by a young boy, applied at the gate of 
the convent for alms to assist him on his journey. 
It was Christopher Columbus, with his son Diego, 
so reduced as to be obliged to seek the aid of 
charity. He was on his way to Huelvos, to 
seek there a brother of his deceased wife. His 
circumstances were now at the lowest ebb ; but 
from this moment the tide turned, though for 
some time the advance of the waters seemed 
imperceptible. While receiving from the porter 
the humble refreshment of a little bread and 
water, the guardian of the convent. Friar Juan 
Perez de Marchena, happened to pass by, and, 
struck with the appearance of the stranger, en- 
tered into conversation with him. The friar 
was an intelligent man, and had addicted him- 
self to geographical and nautical studies. In 
the course of the conversation, Columbus stated 
his convictions, as well as the plans he had 
formed in his own mind. So impressed was he 
with the grandeur of the views which were 
opened before him. that he invited the friend- 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 43 

less, and now almost hopeless stranger to be- 
come his guest. He likewise sent for one of 
his scientific friends, Garria Fernandez, a phy- 
sician of Palos, to join in the conversations in 
which he already felt so deep an interest. It 
would be a noble picture, which should repre- 
sent these three persons sitting together in one 
of the rooms of the convent : Columbus, with the 
earnestness of one who believed himself, and 
with the seriousness of one who saw inwardly 
a prospect before him of such extent and mag- 
nificence, yet with that mixture of despondency 
which so many disappointments, together with 
his own increasing years, could not but have 
produced ; yet seizing on the present unexpect- 
ed opportunity, which might be his last, of im- 
pressing his own convictions on the minds of 
others ; his new friends listening with attention, 
with admiration, and gradually perceiving that 
the project, splendid as it was, and beyond the 
limits of present experience, was yet capable of 
realization. They were both convinced, and 
became, from that moment, his humble but in- 
defatigable coadjutors. The three might almost 
be termed the first committee for the discovery 
of lands beyond the western Atlantic. They 
were not content with theory. They inquired 
into fact. They called before them the hardy 



44 coLUMBua. 

veterans of the fishing-port, from whom they 
learned various circumstances which seemed to 
require, for their explanation, the existence of 
inhabited countries far to the west. And soon 
the committee added an important member to 
its numbers. Martin Alonzo Pinzon, residing 
at Palos, the head of a family of rich and en- 
terprising navigators, himself one of the most 
intelligent sea-captains of the day, after listen- 
ing to the details of Columbus, became so 
thoroughly his disciple, that he not only offered 
to share in the expenses of the undertaking, but 
in the undertaking itself. 

And very important was the issue of their 
numerous conversations. The friar earnestly 
recommended Columbus to repair to the court 
of the Spanish sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella, and to lay his plans before them, solicit- 
ing their patronage and aid, without which it 
was felt that a voyage, promising such noble 
issues, but in many respects so mysterious, and 
which, in the then state of public opinion and 
feeling, was likely to be so perilous, could not 
be undertaken. Pinzon engaged to furnish 
money for the journey to the court; and the 
friar, besides promising to take care of young 
Diego during the absence of his father, and to 
attend all that while to hi.s education, offered 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 45 

him a letter of recommendation to a friend of 
his own, Fernando de Talavera, prior of the 
convent of Prado, and confessor to the queen. 
Through his influence, the exercise of which 
the letter earnestly besought, it was thought 
that access to the royal personages might be 
secured. 

On what apparently trifling circumstances do 
great events sometimes depend ! Occurrences 
seemingly so casual, that in describing them the 
customary phrase, happened, is almost naturally 
employed, eventually prove to be the first steps 
in a progress that shall strike nations with 
astonishment, and give a new direction to the 
history of the world. He who had never seen 
the rising sun — could he anticipate the full 
brightness of day from the almost equivocal 
diminution of darkness in the earliest dawn? 
He who had never seen the spreading oak, nor 
reflected on the powers of germination in the 
seed — could he anticipate the full-grown tree, 
trunk, branches, and leaves, from the first visible 
acorn-shoots ? It is not for us to condemn the 
day of small and feeble things. The Creator 
and Lord of all does not despise them. The 
gradual development of small beginnings into 
vast accomplishments, is a leading characteristic 
of the administration of the Almighty One who 



46 COLUMBUS. 

hath set his throne in the heavens, and whose 
kingdom ruleth over all. A poor and friendless 
traveler, with his young child, apply at a con- 
vent-gate for a little bread and water; and 
while partaking of this simple meal, one of the 
superiors of the establishment thus kindly aid- 
ing the wayfarer, happens to come by, happens 
to be struck w^ith the appearance of the mendi- 
cant, happens to enter into conversation with 
him ! And he concerning w^hose conduct all 
these " happens " have to be said, likewise hap- 
pened to be the man whose previous studies had 
prepared him for the conversation, happened to 
be the man whose recommendation to an influ- 
ential friend was to be the means of securing 
the attention of royalty ! Ceaseless is the reign 
of God, and " all things serve his sovereign 
will." His " never-failing providence ordereth 
all things in heaven and earth." Fitting is it, 
therefore, that we trust in him, and do good, 
even though he permit us for a time to walk in 
darkness and have no light. Every encourage- 
ment that our unbelieving hearts can require 
have we to " cast all our care upon God, who 
careth for us." 

" Commit thou all thy griefs 
And ways into his hands, 
To His sure truth and tender care, 
Who earth and heaven rommands. 



DISCOVERT OF AMERICA. 47 

" Who points the clouds their course, 
Whom winds and seas obey ; 
He shall direct thy wand'ring feet, 
He shall prepare thy way. 

" Leave to his sovereign sway 
To choose and to command ; 
So shalt thou wondering own his way, 
How wise, how strong his hand. 

" Far, far above thy thought 
His counsel shall appear, 
When fully He the work hath wrought. 
That caused thy needless fear." 

Hope had once more visited the mind of 
Columbus ; and, cheered by the kindness of his 
new friends, as well as encouraged by their 
junction and support, in the spring of 1486, he 
left the hospitable convent of Palos, to solicit 
the Monarch s of Spain to add a new world to 
their dominions. 



CHAPTER VI. 

COLUMBUS AT THE SPANISH COURT. 

Ferdinand and Isabella were now fully en- 
gaged in their plans for removing from Spain 
the last vestiges of the Mohammedan domina- 
tion, which had endured there so many centuries. 
And while they relaxed in neither effort nor 
preparation, they were buoyant in the prospect 
of rapidly approachuig and final success. They 



48 COLUMBUS. 

had not long before fixed their court at Cordova, 
that they might be nearer to Granada, the con- 
quest of which they now believed to be certain. 
King and Queen of Castile and Arragon, if 
Granada were conquered, for the first time since 
the days of Roderic the Goth, all Spain would 
be the undivided heritage of their successor. 
Ferdinand was, in many respects, much like 
Henry VII. of England. Prudent to craftiness, 
ever mindful of his own interests, and most 
easily accessible when these were likely to be 
promoted, attentive to business, and bigoted in 
religion; his character, in its several aspects, 
has been ably, and with great brevity, given by 
Washington Irving i " He was called the Wise 
and Prudent in Spain ; in Italy, the Pious ; in 
France and England, the Ambitious and the 
Perfidious." 

The character of Isabella was different. She 
was beautiful and dignified in her person and 
manners, pious, and richly endowed in mind. 
Regarding her husband with strong affection, in 
his general policy she agreed with him ; but her 
religion was more genuine, her views more lofty, 
and her desire stronger for the improvement 
and well-being of her subjects. Her prudence 
was without craft, and her ambition unselfish. 
Literature and the arts she patronized : and, as 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 49 

she was able, she willingly employed her power 
for the promotion of knowledge. Few female 
sovereigns have ever exhibited a character of 
more complete loveliness, or left for the record- 
ing pen of history more decided proofs of a de- 
sire, wise, strong, and unfailing, for the welfare 
of her subjects, than the royal Isabella of Castile. 
The good she did was from herself, springing 
from her truly religious benevolence ; the mis- 
chief resulting from some of her proceedings 
was occasioned either by the mistakes of the 
age, or by the sad errors which were mingled 
with Christian truths in her creed, and which 
often so painfully affected their operation. 

The period of the appearance of Columbus 
at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella was not 
favorable for his immediate success. The city 
was all alive with the bustle of military pre- 
paration. Spain was on the tiptoe of expecta- 
tion; and the prospect of early success made 
every Spaniard anxious to comply with the 
wishes of the sovereigns, and to hasten to join 
their standard. Cordova resembled a splendid 
camp. One subject engrossed all classes. All 
were waiting for the opening of the campaign 
which was, it was hoped, to free the Spanish soil 
from the footsteps of the infidel invaders, who 
were still regarded as foreigners. The war was 
4 



50 COLUMBUS. 

a species of crusade, and even ecclesiastics be- 
lie .d it to be their duty to engage in it. Ta- 
lavera was one of the clerical advisers of the 
queen, and was so occupied with these public 
duties, that he had no leisure to attend to the 
applications of Columbus, or could give them 
only that superficial regard in which they would 
seem altogether visionary. Foreign discovery- 
was, indeed, an exciting subject ; but such was 
the character of the discoveries proposed by 
Columbus, that they required the close ex- 
amination of principles, and attention to recon- 
dite arguments. Ferdinand himself headed the 
forces he had collected ; and Isabella was not 
only deeply interested in all his movements, but 
during a part of the time she was present in 
the camp. Columbus, therefore, was still called 
to the exercise of patience ; and it was one of 
the qualities of his great mind that he knew 
how to persevere and wait, where all might be 
ruined by undue haste. He saw that the pro- 
per opportunity had not yet arrived ; and, there- 
fore, during the summer and autumn of 1486, 
he remained at Cordova, doing what he could^ 
as to do what he ivould was not yet in his power. 
His few wants he endeavored to supply by 
making maps and charts. And now that he 
thought himself to be on the eve of success, it 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 51 

pleased Providence that he should be severely- 
tried by discouraging circumstances. He was 
a stranger, and he was poor ; and for both rea- 
sons he found it difficult to gain access to those 
whom he wished to number among his converts. 
Few had the knowledge necessary to under- 
stand the principles on which his scheme was 
based ; and among such a society as Cordova 
saw gathered within its , walls, there would be 
many who, had they even been able to enter 
into the plans of one whom they would be only 
too ready to regard as a wandering adventurer, 
would be more likely to turn the whole into 
ridicule. Nor was he even permitted to remain 
unknown. He obtained the reputation with 
some of being a dreaming enthusiast, and with 
others of being a madman: the very children 
laughed at him as he passed along the streets. 
Severer moral discipline scarcely ever man 
passed through ; but he was strong in personal 
conviction, and lived in the serenity of an entire 
self-possession. He exemplified, even in re- 
ference to his human confidence, the operations 
of a loftier faith : he believed, and he did not 
make haste. He would have been more than 
man had he not felt the shafts of ridicule ; but 
he was unmoved by them. 

Hitherto his reputation had been unshaded ; 



52 COLUMBUS. 

but one circumstance occurred at Cordova, to 
say the least, questionable in its character. A 
mutual attachment was formed between himself 
and Doha Beatrix Enriquez, a lady of a noble 
family in the city. The attachment had not 
the sanction of a formal and public marriage ; 
but the doctrines of the ecclesiastical canonists 
allowed of binding contracts of marriage, and 
marriages private and irregular, but still valid. 
Whether the engagement had this inferior con- 
firmation, is not known ; but he himself always 
treated Fernando, his son by this lady, in the 
same way that he treated Diego, his son by his 
former wife. 

The perseverance of Columbus at length ob- 
tained its reward. Such was the power of his 
address, that when once he could obtain an atten- 
tive hearer, he seldom failed to secure a convert. 
His patient perseverance itself began to outlive 
ridicule, and to wun success. Gradually, an 
impression was made, which slowly spread, that 
perhaps, after all, he was in the right. He 
might be called a visionary by those who knew 
him not; but those who had intercourse with 
him could not but acknowledge that his views 
were rational. The spreading of the light had 
commenced, and its progress was now rapid. 
The Controller of the Finances of Castile, Alonzo 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 53 

de Quintanilla, listened to him, became a warm 
advocate of his plans, and received him as his 
guest. He was allowed to lay his plans before 
Antonio Giraldini, the Papal Nuncio ; and he, 
together with his brother, Alexander Giraldini, 
preceptor to the younger children of the king 
and queen, became his converts. He was by 
them enabled to take what, visibly, was the most 
important step of all. They introduced him to 
the Archbishop of Toledo, Grand Cardinal of 
Spain, Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, who, from 
his influence with Ferdinand and Isabella, was 
sometimes called "the third King of Spain." 
He was a man of a strong and cultivated intel- 
lect, penetrating and active. He listened to the 
plans of Columbus, examined the arguments by 
which they were supported, and, yielding to 
conviction, saw at once that if they were indeed 
well founded, their importance was incalculable. 
He felt that an opportunity of acquiring unheard- 
of renown, if not wealth and empire, was brought 
within the reach of his sovereigns, and that it 
ought not to be rejected. At length, therefore, 
Columbus obtained what he had so anxiously 
sought, a promise, on which he knew he could 
rely, of an audience with the royal personages 
who governed Spain. He believed that in this 
he was able to offer them what was of greater 



54 COLUMBUS. 

value than fhe present object of their most 
ardent desires. "What was a small tract of land 
in southern Spain, to the Indies, a new and 
shorter route to which he promised to show 
them, and to those as yet undiscovered coun- 
tries in the parts of the world unknown to Eu- 
ropeans, on which he might, if permitted, plant 
the Spanish standard ? Deep, if not somewhat 
superstitious, was the reverence with which 
sovereigns were, in those times, and especially 
in that country, regarded : but Columbus had 
so long meditated on the discovery of a new 
world, the completion of the as yet imperfect 
map of the globe, and, what to him was more 
than all, the extension of the knowledge of the 
true God, and his Son Jesus Christ, among 
multitudes of heathens, that his own mind seem- 
ed to have dilated to the measure of his vast 
conceptions ; and feeling the true greatness of 
human nature, he felt that he could stand erect 
before kings, and present them the worthiest 
homage they can receive, not the servile adu- 
lation of the courtier and the slave, but the 
dignified respect of the free and Christian man. 
He was admitted to the audience in which all 
his anxieties were for his cause, none for him- 
self. In after-days, speaking of this event, he 
said that he felt assisted from above, as an 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 55 

instrument for the accomplishment of the de- 
signs of Providence. By the interview Ferdi- 
nand was deeply impressed. He sufficiently 
understood human nature to perceive that no 
enthusiastic adventurer stood in his presence. 
He saw, also, that the arguments adduced by 
Columbus were more than plausible ; that they 
had the strongest appearance of truth. And 
the idea of their possible truth being once ad- 
mitted, his was precisely the mind to perceive 
its inestimable value. What were the disco- 
veries which had shed such lustre on the crown 
of Portugal, to those which might now be se- 
cured for Spain ? 

But Ferdinand was cautious. He gave orders 
to Fernando de Talavera,to whom Columbus had 
at first been recommended, but from whom he 
only learned, and had yet to learn still more 
painfully, the vanity of human expectations, to 
assemble the learned geographers and astrono- 
mers of the kingdom, before whom Columbus 
was to repeat his statements and reasonings, and 
who, having carefully examined the whole case, 
were to present their report upon it. And as 
he was not to appear before ignorant and flip- 
pant courtiers, but before grave and learned men, 
interested, it might be supposed, in the glories 
of science, as well as in the honors of the Sove- 



56 COLUMBUS. 

reigns and their kingdom, from their report what 
was he to anticipate but support and encourage- 
ment ? Alas ! again was he to experience disap- 
pointment : again was his loyalty to his own so- 
lemn convictions of truth to be put to a test, 
which, as contrasted with the almost sanguine 
hopes he had thought himself justified in cherish- 
ing, would be felt by him as the severest of all. 



CHAPTER VII. 

PATRONAGE OF ISABELLA. 

The Council of Inquiry into the theory and pro- 
posals of Columbus was appointed to be held at 
Salamanca, at that time considered as the prin- 
cipal seat of learning in Spain. The board was 
composed of some of the most learned men in 
the kingdom, civil and ecclesiastical. But the 
low state of science will be remembered, and its 
dependence rather on artificial reasonings, than 
on the laws of truth, as ascertained by patient 
inquiry into fact. Hypothetical theories had not 
yet been dethroned by the " New Organ" of phi- 
losophizing to which, in a subsequent age, at- 
tention was directed by Bacon. Partisanship 
in science was then as powerful and violent as 
now it is in politics. If Columbus was disap- 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 57 

pointed in the result of their deliberations, the 
account of it will now occasion no surprise. Few 
came to the conference without prepossessions ; 
many were strongly influenced by prejudice. 
Columbus stood alone in the comprehensiveness 
of his views. Of his judges perhaps all were 
narrow-minded ; most of them bigoted. Tala- 
vera, too, by whom they had been convened, had 
at an earlier period neglected Columbus, and 
justified his neglect by an unqualified condemna- 
tion of the theory submitted to him ; and many 
others felt their pride rebuked, that an obscure 
mariner should pretend to know what their pe- 
netration had not discovered. But Columbus 
knew too little of this to be dismayed by it ; or, 
if it were suspected, he felt strong in the truth 
of his cause. But he soon perceived the in- 
trenchments which he must carry, before he won 
the day. He was met by questions and objec- 
tions which demonstrated that among his hearers 
there was no reigning love of truth for its own 
sake. Some actually denied the possibility of 
any inhabitants at the antipodes, as men could 
not live with their heads downwards ! Some 
said that the plan was impracticable, because too 
much time would be required to sail such a dis- 
tance as they supposed to exist; and others, 
that the heat of the torrid zone rendered it un- 



58 COLUMBUS. 

inhabitable. Religion, too, was introduced. All 
men, it was said, were descended from Adam, 
and, therefore, to suppose inhabitants where 
Adam's children could never have traveled, was 
to contradict the Bible ! All the arguments were 
of this nature. They partly arose, indeed, from 
imperfect information ; and this was excusable : 
but they were urged with an obstinacy totally 
inconsistent with allegiance to truth. The theo- 
ry of Columbus did not originate in speculative 
hypotheses. It was theory in the legitimate 
sense of the term. Established principles were 
adduced ; facts were collected ; and the theory 
was the result of an induction more practically 
correct than any of the instances laid down even 
by Bacon, in connection with his Novum Orga- 
7ium. Had the principle of Bacon been as un- 
sound as some of his illustrative instances, — as 
his " Inquiry into the Nature of Heat," — the In- 
ductive Philosophy would never have removed 
science from the rule of the Aristotelian logic 
The fault of these learned men consisted in their 
selfish obstinacy. With admirable patience, Co- 
lumbus submitted to all their interrogatories, 
listened to all their objections; answered the 
first, and refuted the last. His reply to their 
arguments from Scripture was triumphant. He 
laid by his maps and charts, and descanted on 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 59 

the texts which promised such a glorious exten- 
sion to the Church. He spoke, with the zeal of 
an enlightened Missionary, of the ends of the 
earth being commanded to look unto God, that 
they might be saved ; and of the divine name 
being great from the rising to the setting sun. 
His imagination glowed with the predicted pros- 
perity of Zion, — predictions, the accomplishment 
of which such objections as he had heard would 
completely prevent, were they always to be adopt- 
ed. Some of his hearers were convinced, and 
among them a learned Professor of Theology at 
Salamanca, Diego de Deza, who afterwards be- 
came Archbishop of Seville. By his means 
some other learned men were gained; but the 
bulk were immovable. The board held several 
consultations among themselves, but came to no 
decision. At length, early in the spring of 1487, 
Talavera left Salamanca to join the court, and 
the Council broke up, leaving the almost worn- 
out mariner in a state of the most painful sus- 
pense. 

And in this state he had to spend several years. 
He followed, from time to time, the movements 
of the court, and was occasionally flattered with 
hopes of success. He still constructed maps and 
charts for his subsistence ; though he was be- 
friended by Diego de Deza, and was also some- 



60 ^COLUMBUS. 

times a guest with Alonzo de Quintanilla. He 
was permitted, also, to attend the royal suite, and 
small sums were more than once granted, for the 
purpose of defraying his expenses. He was be- 
come better known, and by many he was much 
respected ; so that his circumstances were very 
different from those in which he stood as a men- 
dicant at the gate of the convent at Palos. At 
length, in 1491, he pressed for a decisive reply ; 
but the aspect of affairs was unfavorable. The 
war was not yet concluded, though the Sove- 
reigns were preparing for what proved to be the 
final campaign. The Council were now ordered 
to meet, and give their ultimate report. They 
did so ; and Talavera, in their name, condemned 
the scheme as impracticable ; and one unworthy 
the attention of the Sovereigns, considering the 
weakness of the grounds on which it was pro- 
fessedly supported. In communicating this re- 
sult, however, Ferdinand and Isabella informed 
Columbus that they did not finally reject his 
offer ; but that, though the expenses of the war 
forbade them to engage for the present in any 
new enterprises, at its conclusion, they would 
have leisure to re-consider the subject. He now 
gave up al) hope of obtaining royal patronage, 
and left the court. Thus closed the year 1491, 
and with it, for that time, his dependence on the 



DISCOVERY OF AMEKICA. 61 

Sovereigns of Spain. But whither was he to 
go? His convictions had gathered strength by 
investigation. More firmly than ever did he 
believe in the existence of undiscovered regions; 
and more resolved than ever was he, to be, if 
possible, their discoverer. He therefore looked 
round for patronage. He had favorable infor- 
mation from England, and from France; and 
the King of Portugal had requested him to re- 
turn. But he had now domestic ties again in 
Spain, and* he directed his attention to some of 
the nobles of the country. The Duke of Me- 
dina Sidonia listened to him, but thought his 
views were too splendid to be true. With the 
Duke of Medina Celi he was for a time more 
successful. So strongly was he impressed with 
the representations that were made to him, that 
he at length consented to employ a portion of 
his great wealth, together with three or four 
vessels that he had ready for sea in Port St. 
Mary, situated on one of his estates. Before 
he had finally decided, however, he remembered 
that the patronage he was about to accord had 
been refused by the court. Fearing to excite 
the royal jealousy, he withdrew his partially 
given consent, and again was Colui ibus disap- 
pointed. He now resolved upon quitting Spain, 
and repairing to Paris. For this purpose he 



62 COLUMBUS. 

returned to the convent at Palos, to remove his 
son Diego, whom he intended to take to Cordova, 
leaving him there with his other son, of course 
under the care of Doiia Beatrix Enriquez, a 
circumstance that justifies the hope — a very na- 
tural one, to all who understand the canonical 
law on the subject of marriage — that the con- 
nection was not an illegal one. As the law then 
was, a marriage might be formally irregular in 
the judgment of the Church, which yet was so 
far valid in the judgment of law, as that it would 
have absolutely prevented every other engage- 
ment, on the ground of precontract, altliough 
the issue would not be regarded as legitimate. 
Columbus returned to Palos apparently with 
fewer hopes of success than those with which he 
had left it for Cordova, in the spring of 1486 ; 
and already had the year 1492, the most memo- 
rable in the history of his own life, and ever 
memorable in the history of the world, opened 
upon him. No more faithful friend had he than 
the friar, Juan Perez de Marchena, who had at 
first noticed him at his meal of bread and water ; 
the provision of Christian charity. Six years 
had elapsed. Columbus had submitted his plans 
to royalty, and had argued them with the learn- 
ed. All seemed to be in vain. He had return- 
ed whence he set out, for the purpose of making 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 63 

his final arrangements, and offering to another 
country the glories and advantages which Spain 
appeared to have rejected. The patriotism of 
the good friar was alarmed. To him, the plans 
of Columbus had become an incontrovertible 
fact, and he could not bear to think that his 
own country should lose the whole of what he 
deemed to be the certain glory and advantage. 
He persuaded Columbus to delay yet a little 
longer, while he himself would make a final 
efibrt. Isabella he knew, as he had been her 
confessor; and he believed that if the subject 
were laid before her, fully and seriously, it 
would receive her approbation. He wrote to 
her, therefore, earnestly imploring her to permit 
Columbus to detail his projects in her own 
presence, calling her attention not only to the 
additional honor that would result from adding 
countries not yet discovered to the empire of 
Spain, now for the first time, by the conquest 
of the Moors, restored, after ages of divided 
rule, to its original integrity; but likewise to 
that which would shine on the Christian Church, 
by the extension of its sacred truths among 
multitudes of Pagans. Sebastian Rodriguez, a 
pilot residing in the neighborhood, was chosen 
to be the bearer of this letter to the queen. So 
faithfully did he acquit himself, that in fourteen 



64 COLUMBUS. 

days he returned with an order for the good 
friar to repair immediately to the court, and 
represent to her the case, while Columbus him- 
self was to continue at the convent till further 
intelligence was received. 

And, for the honor of Spain, the tide of affairs 
had not turned too soon. Bartholomew Colum- 
bus had sailed for England, to lay his brother's 
projects before Henry VII. ; but fell in with 
pirates on his passage, who robbed him of all 
that he possessed, so that he arrived in England 
in a state of complete poverty, and for some 
time lived in obscurity, earning a scanty liveli- 
hood, as Christopher had done, by constructing 
maps and charts for the use of navigators. In 
1489 he presented a map of the world to the 
king; and, though he had to pass through a 
long ordeal of contempt and neglect, ultimately 
so ingratiated himself with the calculating mon- 
arch, that he was commissioned to invite his 
brother to repair to London. But Henry was 
too late. Columbus had sailed before the tardy 
message arrived in Spain. 

The friar Marchena, on receiving the queen's 
letter from Santa Fe, lost no time in obeying 
it. He soon obtained admission to Isabella, and 
stated the views of Columbus with such earnest- 
ness, that she at once ordered his attendance, 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. Qij 

that she might judge of his plans after hearing 
them more particularly described by his own 
lips. And, with provident generosity, she di- 
rected that a sum of money should be sent to 
him to defray his necessary expenses. He ar- 
rived at the city-camp (for such was Santa Fe) 
in time to witness the close of Moorish dominion 
in Spain, in the surrender of Granada. From 
the Alhambra, Boabdil el Chico, the last of the 
Mohammedan monarchs, mournfully proceeded 
to deliver up the keys of the city to Ferdinand 
and his consort, now the rulers of entire Spain. 
Never had such a triumph been known in the 
kingdom. From the monarchs to their lowest 
subject, the whole multitude was moved by the 
enthusiasm of patriotism and religion. And 
Columbus was present. It is said that he alone 
appeared to be unmoved by the general impulse. 
And no wonder. So long had he contemplated 
the idea of the discovery of a new w^orld, that 
it had become, as it were, a portion of his own 
being. Before his imagination prospects arose, 
magnificent even when most vague ; and a mind 
like his could not have dwelt so much on it 
without those occasional exercises of the fancy 
which would disperse the clouds, or fill them 
with the gorgeous hues of sunset. And to the 
man who had such illimitable scenes before him, 
5 



66 COLUMBUS. 

what would be one single city, with whatever 
splendid associations it might be connected? 
The heart of Columbus was not there. In the 
midst of that brilliant throng, he was alone : 
with one grand conception he had become fami- 
liar, and no one shared it with him. It was as 
though all his thoughts were embodied in words 
which none understood but himself, so that none 
could hold communion with him. All Spain 
was rejoicing in the acquisition of a small slip 
of territory in her own borders : he was per- 
suaded that he could open the way to unknown 
empires beyond what hitherto had proved the 
impassable ocean. The visionary stood alone; 
his whole soul pervaded by the conviction that 
his visions were glorious realities. 

Granada was conquered. The affair of Co- 
lumbus was laid officially before the monarchs. 
Persons were appointed to negotiate with him. 
But new difficulties arose. Columbus proposed 
two principal conditions : that he should be Ad- 
miral of the seas, and Viceroy of the countries 
he should discover ; and that he should have one- 
tenth of all gains- He offered to defray an 
eighth part of the expense, provided, also, that 
he should have, additionally, a like share of the 
profits. The first stipulation seems to have 
been necessary both for his honor and power. 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 67 

Nearly the same privileges had been granted by 
the court of Lisbon to the discoverers of the 
islands which had been added to their crown; 
and there was already an officer in Spain, with 
the title of Admiral of Castile, the office itself 
being above a century old. Columbus requested 
letters patent in similar form, conferring the 
same title and office as to the seas and countries 
which he might discover. And surely one-tenth 
of the gain, leaving nine-tenths for the sovereign, 
whose would be all the real empire likewise, 
was not too munificent a reward. But his old 
opponent, Ferdinand de Talavera, now arch- 
bishop of the new Spanish city of Granada, was 
the principal person in the commission, and his 
terms were finally pronounced inadmissible. 
He refused to make the least concession. His 
plans with him were certainties ; and, therefore, 
renouncing all further hope from Spain, he 
again resolved to leave the country, and made 
immediate preparations for departure from the 
court. 

He had three friends, however, who now fully 
entered into his plans. This final rejection 
filled them with grief, and they resolved again 
to appeal to Isabella in person. The hospitable 
Friar of Rabida was one ; the other two, Alonzo 
de Quintanilla, and Luis de St. Angel, the last 



68 COLUMBUS. 

a skillful financier, and Queen Isabella's con- 
troller. They told her that the loss on failure 
would be comparatively trifling; the gain of 
success incalculable. They appealed to her re- 
ligious feelings, and sense of honor. She was 
so moved, that she declared she would under- 
take the enterprise for her own crown of Castile, 
and would, if necessary, pledge her royal jewels 
for the expenses. She made the decision, and 
became the patroness of the discovery of the 
New World. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
PREPARATION FOR THE EXPEDITION. 

In the mean time, the preparations of Columbus 
were completed, and he had already left Granada 
on his way to Cordova, intending to proceed 
thence to France, where he resolved to renew 
his offers. He had left Granada, and was two 
leagues from the city, when he was overtaken 
by the courier, who had been sent to request 
his return. For a short time he paused. No 
wonder that he hesitated. He might almost 
have seen, in this relentless opposition, re- 
luctantly yielding to the noble spirit of Isabella, 
the seeds whence bitter fniit might ultimately 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 69 

grow. Still, so dear was the object, and so un- 
certain success elsewhere, that, after brief but na- 
tural hesitation, and confiding in the pledged word 
of the queen, he consented to retrace his steps. 
Isabella, having once resolved, entered into 
the scheme with an ardent zeal which might 
have been expected from a nature like hers, 
allowing itself steadily and fully to regard a 
subject so truly magnificent as that now placed 
before her. It related to the discovery of a 
new world, and the extension of the Christian 
faith ; and now that at length she understood 
what this Genoese navigator proposed, and per- 
ceived the probable foundation on which his 
plans rested, she saw how much more likely 
was success than failure, and how bright and 
imperishable the glory which success would give 
to the joint reign of herself and husband. As 
soon, therefore, as Columbus had returned to 
Santa Fe, he was called to her presence, and 
required himself to state all his opinions and 
wishes, — for this time, after so many tantalizing 
delays, before a willing auditor. The warmth 
of Isabella was strongly contrasted with the 
calculating craftiness of Ferdinand ; but, in her 
well-regulated mind, warmth was real power. 
She had resolved that the requisite funds should 
be supplied from her own revenues of Castile ; 



70 COLUMBUS. 

at the same time, in this instance, as in every 
other during her reign, she was careful that in 
public, and in all official proceedings, the king 
of Arragon should be associated with her. All 
was to be done in the name of " Ferdinand and 
Isabella ;" and now that his queen had under- 
taken to defray the expense, and had even taken 
upon herself the real responsibility of the whole, 
the sagacious monarch no longer objected to an 
enterprise, in the failure of which he would 
incur neither disgrace nor loss, but from whose 
success he was sure to derive both honor and 
profit. Columbus had now to negotiate with 
officers w^ho had been directed to draw up the 
agreements between himself and the Sovereigns ; 
and, as Isabella was anxious that no time should 
be lost, but that the voyage should commence 
before autumn had to yield to winter, the period 
of delay was past, and the heart of the bold 
veteran already beat high in the sure prospect 
of the resolution of his doubts : he believed that 
that resolution would be the triumphant con- 
firmation of all his anticipations. With a re- 
luctance on the part of the agents of Ferdinand, 
which would have justified Columbus in the 
fear that when he had to look for the fulfillment 
of the promises made to him, vexatious difficul- 
ties would be dishonorably interposed, the docu- 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 71 

merits which he required were at length signed. 
By this instrument it was agreed: — 1. Colum- 
bus and his heirs to be the King's Admirals in 
all the parts discovered by him "during his 
natural life," " with all the pre-eminences and 
prerogatives which belong to the said office, in 
the same manner as possessed by Don Alphonso 
Enriques, High Admiral of Castile;" 2. To be 
"Viceroy and Governor-general over all the 
said islands, continents, &c., with the power of 
naming, for each separate government, three 
persons, one of whom the King was to select 
and appoint ; 3. To have the tenth part of the 
profits remaining, after all expenses had been 
5)aid, the other nine being for the Sovereigns ; 
4/ To be Judge in the courts, necessary for in- 
quiring into questions respecting merchandise, 
&c. ; and, 5. To be permitted to contribute an 
eighth share of the expenses of equipment, and 
to take an eighth share of the gain." — " Granted, 
in the town of Santa Fe, in the plain of Granada, 
tbe seventeenth day of April, in the year of the 
nativity of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, one thou- 
sand four hundred and ninety-two. — I the 
King. — I the Queen." 

Preparations had now to be made for the 
expedition itself. Palos, with which and its 
neighborhood Columbus was so connected, was 



72 COLUMBUS. 

bound, by some charter or law, to serve the 
crown with two armed caravels, for three months 
in the year. Ferdinand, with his usual thrift, 
fixed on these as his share, and ordered them 
to be got ready without loss of time. The third 
vessel was equipped by Columbus, through the 
assistance of his friends, at his own expense. 
While he remained at court, Isabella afforded 
him a striking and very encouraging mark of 
her favor. His son Diego was appointed page 
to Prince Juan, the heir-apparent. This was 
an honor which had hitherto only been granted 
to the sons of persons of high rank; but the 
queen had a kind heart, and knew how gratified 
the father would be in leaving his son under 
such patronage : her judgment, usually correct 
and far-seeing, may likewise have had some- 
thing to do with this appointment ; as she would 
reflect, that should the enterprising parent prove 
successful, according to the terms of the agree- 
ment, himself and heirs would be called to high 
office and rank, and that by this position at 
court, young Diego would be, in fact, under- 
going a training which subsequently would be 
found to have been necessary for him. On the 
12th of May, all being finished that had to be 
done at court, Columbus lefl it, directing his 
steps now toward the harbor from which he 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 73 

hoped soon to sail for the discovery of the se- 
cond half of the world. He was fifty-six years 
of age ; and for nearly twenty, his mind had 
been fixed on one object. If he were past the 
vigor of life as to age, yet his constitution was 
sound, and had never been injured by excess. 
Powerful in frame, he was likewise mature in 
judgment, conscious of superiority, exercising 
command almost as a right, dignified, and yet 
affable, so self-possessed, that by no event was 
he to be surprised, and so self-controlled, that 
he was always well able to govern others. 

At Palos, however, he found that if obstruc- 
tions were removed out of the way, the way 
itself was rough, presenting a friction which, 
though it could not prevent, greatly impeded all 
his movements. While an expedition to tra- 
verse unknown seas was only a scheme in the 
mind of an individual, and a few friends whom 
he had persuaded that it was a good one, all 
was quiet. Everybody could calmly look at 
that which interfered with nobody. In a small 
seaport, it would furnish a novel topic for both 
reasonable discourse and idle gossip. But all 
this quietness had to be disturbed. When Co- 
lumbus arrived at the convent, his good friend 
the Prior received him with exultation. Their 
object was gained. Preparations for the speedy 



74 COLUMBUS. 

commencement of the actual voyage had to be 
made. It would not be easy to conceive the 
feelings with which Columbus and the Prior 
would grasp each other's hand. Six years be- 
fore, the first, with his youthful son, the com- 
panion of his homeless wanderings, had stood 
at the convent-gate, a mendicant, for the re- 
freshment of bread and water ; and the second 
had been struck by his appearance, and by 
conversation with him had learned his plans. 
The six years had been replete with anxiety 
and disappointment. But they are gone, and 
their cares ! The youth is high in ofiice at court. 
The father is about to begin one of the most 
momentous undertakings ever conceived by man. 
We may be sure, that as soon as mutual con- 
gratulations had been exchanged, work would 
commence. And so it was. The friends pro- 
cured a notary, proceeded to Palos, called the 
authorities and inhabitants to assemble in the 
parish church of St. George, and there publicly 
read the royal order for the equipment of the 
caravels, and their employment on this dis- 
covery-voyage, as soon as all was ready. The 
people were astonished ; and to astonishment 
fear, and even terror, soon succeeded. Of per- 
sons actually engaged in such a voyage they 
had never heard. Every conceivable danger 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 75 

that ignorance and superstition could suggest 
was imagined. Alarm spread from family to 
family, from heart to heart, and increased by 
communication. Palos was a nursery of sea- 
men. Many a bold youth was there, many a 
hardy and experienced veteran. But youth and 
veteran alike shrank from the perilous enter- 
prise. Orders came from the Sovereigns to 
impress into the service the number of seamen 
required; but these could not be carried into 
effect. Commotions and tumults ensued ; and 
Columbus, just when he thought that all was 
gained, stood for a time in doubt whether he 
should not be obliged, after all, to desist. Who 
would undertake a voyage, from which, it was 
said, neither vessels nor seamen would re- 
turn ? 

Just at this time, the wealthy navigator whom 
Columbus, some years before, had succeeded in 
convincing, boldly came forward, and, together 
with his brother, Vincente Yaiiez Pinzon, not 
only declared their approval of the voyage, but 
offered themselves to accompany it, with two of 
their own vessels. Their example was effec- 
tual; the vessels were soon manned, and the 
process of storing them rapidly proceeded. The 
greatest difficulties were connected with the third 
vessel, which had been pressed into the service. 



76 COLUMBUS. 

The repairs needed were so imperfectly perform- 
ed, that they had to be done over again. The 
workmen absconded, and scarcely could their 
place be supplied. To the very last moment 
had Columbus to combat with difficulties, and 
surmount obstructions. But he was invincible. 
"With mingled firmness and patience he went 
onward, till the long-desired moment arrived, 
in which he could say, " All is ready !" This was 
in the beginning of August. 

And what was the "fleet" provided for this 
great expedition? Three vessels, only one of 
which was completely decked ! The other two 
were little more than the river and coasting barks 
of our own time. These caravels, as they were 
termed, were built high at the prow and stern, 
with forecastles and cabins for the crew ; but the 
centres were not decked. The decked vessel was 
called the " Santa Maria," and carried Columbus 
and the Admiral's flag. One of the caravels, the 
" Pinta," was commanded by Martin Alonzo Pin- 
zon ; and the other, the " Nina," by his brother, 
Vincente Yanez. Francisco Martin Pinzon, 
another brother, sailed with Alonzo as his mate. 
Garcia Fernandez, the Physician of Palos, sailed 
with Yincente. They had also three able pilots 
on board, whose names deserve a record, — San- 
cho Ruiz, Pedro Alonzo Nirio, and Bartholomew 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 77 

Roldan. The total number of persons was one 
hundred and twenty. 

Unhappily, as the moment of departure ap- 
proached, the gloom of the whole community 
was increased. Perhaps this was not unnatural. 
It could not be expected that Columbus, so far 
in advance of the age, should be able to bring 
the rest to share in his own views and feelings. 
The relations and friends of all parties concerned 
expressed their persuasion that the separation 
would be a final one ; and the grief they indulged 
spread from them to the crews. 

The last act of Columbus was in accordance 
with his general character. Towards the con- 
clusion of the day before that on which the voyage 
was to commence, he, and all his companions, 
attended religious service, confessing themselves, 
and receiving absolution, according to the doc- 
trines of the Church of which they were mem- 
bers; thus solemnly committing themselves to 
the divine protection. This was August 2d, 1492. 



78 COLUMBUS. 

CHAPTER IX. 

COLUMBUS ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE. 

Early in the morning of the 3d of August, 
1492, almost all the inhabitants of a small sea- 
port, on the south-west coast of Spain, were 
gathered together to see three vessels, contain- 
ing one hundred and twenty persons, for the most 
part belonging to Palos and its neighborhood, 
sail out of the harbor. On shore, there were few 
who were not filled with grief, being persuaded 
that their relations and friends who were on 
board would return no more. By the lamenta- 
tions of those who were to be left, the minds of 
those who were leaving were painfully affected. 
Their spirits were depressed, their fears excited ; 
and could they have abandoned the voyage, they 
would have done so. There was, however, one 
man who, though not unaffected by what he saw, 
was yet, in regard to his high enterprise, un- 
moved. The period had arrived which he had 
long desired, long sought. He did all that he 
could to communicate something of his own feel- 
ing to those whom he regarded as his compan- 
ions in the prosecution of a glorious work. As 
the vessels slowly moved along, while the crews 
were looking shoreward, and repeating their 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 79 

signs of farewell to their friends, Columbus was 
looking oceanward, his thoughts traveling in 
their swift flight far beyond that horizon-line, 
where sea and sky seemed to meet, and exult- 
ing already in the anticipation of the new shores 
which he hoped, ere long, to behold, and from 
which he trusted to return in triumph, spreading 
joy where now was so much sorrow. The ves- 
sels were first steered to the south-west. It was 
his intention to proceed to the Canary Islands, 
and thence take his real departure on his voyage 
of discovery. Only on the third day after leav- 
ing port, his troubles began. A signal was made 
from the " Pinta," that her rudder was broken, 
and had become unserviceable. It was feared 
that this was no accident; but that her disaffected 
owners had purposely occasioned it, that the dis- 
abled vessel might have to return. Even the 
crews of the other vessels — for those were days 
of superstition, and sailors are never less super- 
stitious than those of their own class among lands- 
men — regarded the event as an omen of misfor- 
tune, — a sign of bad luck ; and it required all 
the energy of the Admiral to induce them to pro- 
ceed. They soon reached the Canaries; and 
for two or three weeks Columbus cruised among 
the islands in search of a vessel which he might 
take instead of the " Pinta." To add to his vexa- 



80 COLUMBUS. 

tions, he heard that three Portuguese vessels had 
been seen hovering to the westward. He feared 
that these had been detached for the purpose of 
intercepting his little fleet, and putting a stop to 
his voyage. Finding no other vessel, the " Pin- 
ta" was repaired, and all the vessels well stored 
and fitted for the voyage, which was now really 
to begin. Among the Canaries, the sailors scarce- 
ly felt themselves separated from home. He 
was anxious, therefore, that the prow of his ves- 
sel should be furrowing the ocean beyond. He 
endeavored to put to sea on the 6th of Septem- 
ber; but for three days a tedious calm kept 
them close by land. In the night of the 8th, 
the wind freshened a little, and at sunrise he 
saw behind him, some twenty miles distant, the 
most w^esterly of the Canaries, the small island 
of Ferro. The sea was clear all around him, 
to his great joy ; for he dreaded most of all the 
appearance of the Portuguese vessels. As the 
day advanced, the wind increased, and continued 
fair ; so that the land astern gradually diminish- 
ed and faded, till night finally hid it from view ; 
and on the morning of the 10th of September, 
land was no longer in sight. The voyage was 
begun ! But this, which so gladdened the noble 
heart of the Admiral, afiected the sailors so much, 
that many of them even shed tears. What they 



DISCOYERY OF AMERICA. 81 

had left, they knew ; but where were they going ? 
What would they find ? It was the great object 
of Columbus to keep them occupied, and to ani- 
mate them by the prospects which were present 
to his own vision. Still, though he had no dis- 
trust, there would be moments when he must 
feel that his views were not absolutely certain. 
Cheerful to others, the inner man could not but 
be serious, even to solemnity, if not occasionally 
anxious. But all this was his own secret. With 
powerful self-control, he commanded his very 
features, and for some days onward and onward 
went the ships, impelled by the favoring breeze, 
leaving the old world behind, hastening to be- 
hold the new. It is somewhat singular that the 
line on which he sailed was one which protract- 
ed discovery. Had he sailed from the Azores 
instead of the Canaries, and held on due west, 
several days before he saw one of the small Ba- 
hamas, he would have entered the noble Chesa- 
peake, on that great continent which bears the 
name of one not truly its discoverer. Had his 
course even from the Canaries been steered a 
few points to the south, he would have seen the 
Antilles, which he passed to the northward, out 
of sight, some days before he actually made land. 
But, in his circumstances, he thought it best to 
keep uniformly to the west. By splendid de- 



82 COLUMBUS. 

scriptions, appealing to their imagination, by 
splendid promises, appealing to their desire of 
riches, and sometimes by reasoning with them 
on the facts and principles of the case, he sought 
to keep his men in good humor. Thus far he 
was right ; for he himself fully believed all that 
he said. One deception, however, he practiced, 
which, because it was a deception, was unworthy 
of his religious courage. He kept the reckon- 
ing of the fleet himself; and while one paper, 
for his own use, marked the true rate of sailing, 
a second, for his little public, exhibited a much 
slower advance. He did not wish his crew to 
know how far they had sailed. 

Troubles soon began. Before they had left 
Ferro a week, they passed a large mast, floating 
on the water, looking like part of st wreck. 
This, too, the sailors considered as ominous. 
But, in a few days, for a short time even his 
own mind was troubled. He observed, for the 
first time, the variation of the needle, — its de- 
flection from the true north point, as indicated 
by the polar-star. The pilots, also, soon per- 
ceived it, and for a time the alarm was great 
and general. It was apprehended that they 
were approaching localities in which they would 
no longer find the same natural laws in opera- 
tion. He was obliged to explain the matter as 



•DISCOVERY OF AMEEICA. 83 

well as he could ; and his high reputation as 
an astronomer stood him in good stead. Before 
long, the little fleet had entered the "trade 
wind/' which there blows steadily from east to 
west. The sea was smooth, the weather serene, 
and they were wafted rapidly along, for many 
days not shifting a sail. Signs of land, too, as 
Columbus hoped they would prove, began to 
appear. Patches of herbs and weeds were seen 
drifting from the west, some of them appearing 
quite fresh ; and on one of them was a live 
crab. New kinds of birds were seen ; some 
of them evidently land-birds. Every eye now 
was directed vrestward. A pension of thirty 
crowns had been promised to the person first 
discovering land. Columbus frequently sound- 
ed, with a two-hundred-foot line ; but no bottom 
had yet been found. But, though thus occa- 
sionally inspirited, the sailors began to fear that 
they were advancing so far, that return would 
be impracticable. The wind blew from the 
east : how were they to sail toivard the east, 
back again ? Then, again, were they cheered 
by the morning visits of little singing-birds, 
which left them at night, coming from the west, 
and returning in the same direction. Still, as 
they went onward, onward, onward, and nothing 
but sea and skv, their hearts asain failed them. 



84 COLUMBUS. 

One day there was a dead calm, and they feared 
they had entered a region where the winds had 
ceased to blow. Their minds were in such a 
state, that every trifle affected them. Their 
murmurs increased, and at length, among some, 
began to assume the form of resistance to the 
Admiral's authority. He himself had reckoned, 
that at a distance of seven hundred and fifty 
leagues they would find land. They had sailed 
thus far, but no land had been seen. On the 
7th of October, many land-birds came to them 
from the south-west; and appearances in that 
direction were such, that he consented to turn 
his vessel's head from the line which hitherto 
it had traced. Had he not done so, land might 
have been found a day or tW'O later ; but it 
would have been the continent, where it is now 
called Florida. But his crews were almost in 
a state of mutiny. Three days they continued 
in this direction ; and when the sun went down, 
on the 10th of October, no land appeared on 
the horizon. It was with the utmost difficulty, 
by threats and persuasions, by mingled autho- 
rity and kindness, that he induced them to con- 
tinue their course till another day should en- 
lighten the scene. On that day, October 11th, 
in its earlier portion, evident were the indica- 
tions that, somewhere, land was verv neax them. 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 85 

A fish, known to dwell in water among rocks, 
passed them ; a branch, with herries on it, ivas 
seen floating ; also a reed, a piece of board, — r 
wood evidently cut; and, soon after, a carved 
stick. Not only was land near, but land on 
which was man. What a day would that be 
for every one on board, but most of all for the 
" Admiral !" Curiosity there would be in all ; 
in him the curiosity of science. But the sun 
went down, and still no land ! Murmurs, how- 
ever, had subsided: they were in the vicinity 
of land ; and the question was, "Who shall see 
it first ?" And this would be, not from natural 
curiosity alone, but from the hope of the pension 
of thirty crowns. The vesper hymn had been 
sung. Columbus had addressed his crew. He 
told them he believed they would make land 
that very night, and exhorted all to be on the 
"look-out." He took his own station on the 
highest part of the forecastle ; and as the dark- 
ness closed around him, his eye sought to pene- 
trate the veil for the slightest indication of the 
long-desired object. To him, the moments 
would pass slowly ; for anxiety was at its height. 
The "Pinta" was a short distance ahead: from 
her, therefore, the first signal might be expect- 
ed. But he who first conceived the idea first 
witnessed its realization. About ten at night, 



86 COLUMBUS. 

he thought he perceived a light at a great dis- 
tance. He looked again. It appeared to move, 
as if lifted up and down, and then as if a person 
were walking with it. Dreading the effect of 
disappointment on the crew, he called one of 
his officers up to him, Pedro Gutierrez. He, 
too, saw it. He then called Rodrigo Sanchez, 
who just saw it as it disappeared. Twice or 
thrice afterward, however, it appeared again ; 
and though land itself could not be seen, the 
token that there was land, and inhabited land, 
had been given, and first seen by Columbus. 
While they were watching, — and there would 
be no sleep that night, — two in the morning had 
arrived. A gun was fired from the " Pinta." 
It was the signal agreed upon. From that 
vessel, Rodriguez Bermejo, a sailor from Seville, 
had seen that they were approaching land. All 
now was joyous expectation. The hitherto 
unpassed ocean had been crossed. Though 
shrouded by darkness, land was before them ; 
and in a very few hours, day would show them 
what it was. Diligent scientific research, un- 
tiring industry and patience, unconquerable 
perseverance, were about to be rewarded. Co- 
lumbus WAS THE DISCOVERER OF THE NEW 
WORLD. 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 87 

CHAPTER X. 
COLUMBUS TAKES POSSESSION OF THE ISLAND. 

In the conclusions at which Columbus had ar- 
rived, the existence of another continent had 
no place. He expected that Asia extended far 
to the eastward from India ; and to the eastward 
of its farthest coast, he expected to find a large 
island, with rich and warlike inhabitants. Vague 
reports in those days had reached Europe con- 
cerning Japan, or, as Columbus termed it, Ci- 
fango. Whether this were the island, or whe- 
ther it were the Asiatic continent, he knew not. 
At length day broke, and soon all became visible. 
A beautiful island was before these intrepid 
navigators. It was almost covered by verdant 
forests, and the herbage appeared most luxu- 
riant. All were anxious to go on shore. By 
sunrise, the Admiral was ready, clothed in a 
splendid scarlet uniform. The two Pinzons 
likewise entered their boats. All were accom- 
panied by armed men, and carried the banners 
of Castile and Arragon. The inhabitants were 
seen running about in great numbers ; but the 
state of nudity in which they lived, proved at 
once that there was no Asiatic civilization 
among them. Columbus landed, took possession 



88 COLUMBUS. 

of the country in the name of their Spanish 
Majesties, had himself proclaimed Viceroy, and 
received the oaths of subjection from his fol- 
lowers, who were now as excited by joy as 
before they had been dejected by grief and de- 
spair. The most mutinous fell at his feet, 
craving pardon. All promised obedience, and 
few neglected to solicit favors. The inhabitants, 
meanwhile, were all astonishment and alarm. 
At day-break they had seen the vessels, and 
supposed them to be monsters with wings, espe- 
cially when they saw them, as it were, self- 
moved by the sails. When the party landed, 
they saw beings of a new race, and at first fled 
to the woods ; but after a time they became 
assured, and, with all the confidence of their 
unknowing simplicity, mingled freely with their 
visitors. Their skins were fancifully painted; 
but their original complexion was copper-colored. 
For arms they had only lances, the point being 
hardened by fire, or having some fish-bone 
fastened there. Of iron they appeared to have 
no knowledge. Articles for gift or traffic were 
of the most simple character. Some of them, 
however, had ornaments of gold about them. 
The Spaniards, as well as they could, eagerly 
inquired where they had been obtained ; and, 
as well as they could understand the signs, 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 89 

gathered that the region for gold was to the 
south-west. 

Columbus had lauded on an island belonging 
to the group now named " the Bahamas." If 
the map be examined, it will be seen, that if 
he had pursued a course in a somewhat more 
southerly direction, he would much sooner have 
fallen in with land. He landed at what is now 
the island of St. Salvador, which is in about 24° 
north latitude, and 76° west longitude. Sup- 
posing his vessel to have been, some given day, 
in 18° 30' north latitude, and about 61° west 
longitude, he would have been immediately to 
the north of the Antilles, and, sailing directly 
south, he would have come to Barbuda, Antigua, 
Dominica, Martinico, St. Vincent, or Barbadoes, 
(a little to the east,) and so on to Tobago, 
Trinidad, and the southern continent, about the 
mouths of the vast " Orinoco." On the other 
hand, if he had not deviated from his directly 
westerly course, (by which deviation he was 
brought to St. Salvador,) he would either have 
come, about the same time, to Eleuthera, or 
New-Providence ; or, had he been a little to the 
north, and passed them in the night to the 
" larboard," (or left,) as the sailors say, in two 
or three days at farthest he would have run the 
prow of his vessel on the southern point of the 



90 COLUMBUrr. 

North American continent, somewhere on the 
coast of what is now called Florida, and left not 
even the shadow of a reason for giving to the 
new world the name which it now bears from 
a later voyager, whose name is Latinized to 
Americus Vespuccius. If ever man deserved 
that his memory should be preserved in the 
denomination of any land in this globe of 
ours, that man was Christopher Columbus, and 
America should have been Columbia. 

The next morning, the natives, who appear to 
have apprehended no danger from the strangers, 
visited the ships, some by swimming, others in 
vessels formed from the trunk of a single tree, 
hollowed out, which they called canoes, and 
which were, some of them, capable of containing 
forty or fifty persons. It was soon found that 
here, at all events, the dreams which many had 
entertained, and from which Columbus himself 
had not been free, that regions of great wealth 
would be reached, by the discovery of which 
riches might speedily be secured, were not likely 
to be realized. Columbus had thought of reach- 
ing the eastern extremity of the old continent 
of Asia, where a civilized and wealthy people, 
as in India, would be found ; but the simple 
islanders of the Western Indies (as the new 
discoveries, collectively, were soon named) were 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 91 

altogether different from the Hindoos or Chinese. 
And, eventually, most melancholy was the re- 
sult. Many of the companions of Columbus in 
his first voyage, and still more in those which 
he subsequently made, were animated by the 
eager and ignorant cupidity of the day. They 
were men who wanted to " make haste to be 
rich." Unacquainted with the true principles 
of commerce, and too impatient, in their desires 
for wealth, to be contented with the golden egg 
daily — according to the old fable — they wanted 
to be rich at once ; not by the cultivation of the 
land, and by the establishment of new markets 
for home manufactures, and the introduction of 
new articles of commerce into their native 
country, and from Spain, into Europe, gener- 
ally ; but by the immediate possession of the 
more costly articles, especially of the precious 
metals. All these expectations were disap- 
pointed, till Mexico was discovered and con- 
quered, some years afterward, by Fernando 
Cortes, and, subsequently, Peru, by Francis 
Pizarro. The results soon were fatal to the 
inhabitants. Disappointed in their expectations 
of immediate wealth, the Spaniards, though un- 
able to gratify their avarice, could indulge their 
indolence, and the natives were soon compelled 
to become their servants. The consequence 



92 COLUMBUS. 

was, that, worn out by a toil tor which their 
previous habits had unfitted them, and which 
their few wants did not require — as, indeed, the 
nature of the climate did not allow it — they 
gradually melted away, so that their diminished 
and diminishing numbers became insufiicient 
for the cultivation of the land. And then a 
remedy, if possible worse than the disease, was 
employed. A hardier race was judged to be 
necessary; and before the Aborigines had dis- 
appeared — which was the case in no long space 
of time — the importation of Negroes from Africa 
laid the foundation of the guilty systems of the 
African slave-trade, and West Indian and Ame- 
rican slavery. 

The Spaniards soon discovered that their new 
friends had very little to offer them. In return 
for the trinkets that were given them, they had 
only some balls of cotton yarn, and parrots 
which they had tamed. They wore, however, 
small ornaments of gold in their noses; and 
when asked whence these came, they pointed 
to the south, and intimated that the people there 
were warlike, and that from the north-west, 
also, they were sometimes invaded, and the cap- 
tives taken away as slaves. Columbus thought 
this must be the Asia of his imaginings ; and re- 
solving to pursue his discoveries, found no dif- 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 93 

ficulty now in persuading his men to concur in 
his resokition. After a brief repose, therefore, 
he left the island, directing his course toward 
the south, and taking with him several of the 
inhabitants, that they might learn Spanish, and 
be their interpreters in other places. 



CHAPTER XL 
EXPLORATION. 

In some sense it might be said, that the voyage 
of discovery was now finished ; henceforward it 
was to be one of exploration. For some time 
it was most delightful ; every object w^as new, 
the toils and apprehensions of the outward voy- 
age w^ere over, and pleasing certainty had dis- 
placed alarming doubt. Novelty, always most 
gratifying in its first stages, was the more so to 
the Spaniards, fiot only from its contrast with 
the dark and distressing past, nor even from the 
pleasantness of the objects which it exhibited, 
but from the character which all those objects 
sustained, as not only being seen for the first 
time by them, but for the first time by any 
Europeans. It is scarcely possible to conceive 
of a temper more prepared for delight, than that 
of the crews of Columbus, for the first few days 



94 COLUMBUS, 

after tlie grand discovery had been made by them. 
The long-agitated problem was solved, and solved 
by themselves. Every bosom would swell at 
the thoughts of returning home, and telling to 
their anxious, if not despairing friends, the 
wonderful tale of their success. Each sailor 
would feel that at home, in his own circle, he 
would be a hero. He would be able to speak 
to them, not merely of lands which he had seen 
and they had not — and this is still one of the 
greatest pleasures of the returned traveler — 
but of lands of which he had not heard, till he 
saw them, nor they, till he told them. None 
could feel this in so high a degree as Columbus 
himself, but it would be felt by all; and, as 
nothing adverse had as yet occurred, all would 
be disposed to be pleased. For several days 
they sailed from island to island ; but even while 
sailing and looking out for land with expecta- 
tion no longer mingled with anxiety, the sea 
over which they were passing was continually 
affording gratification. The weather was serene, 
the sky bright, the ocean smooth, for they had 
seen it hitherto in only one of its tropical aspects. 
No hurricane had been witnessed by them, 
driving everything before its power, and raising 
the gentle heaving of the water into mountain- 
ous waves. Below the sls'^sy surface, new 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 95 

kinds of fish, many of them beautiful and 
splendid in their hues, were continually sport- 
ing. The island landscapes, likewise, presented 
every variety of loveliness. The verdant plains, 
the wooded hills, the dense foliage of the forests, 
in which, too, were many species of trees here- 
tofore unknown, and which Columbus conjec- 
tured might prove of great value in Spain, both 
for dyeing and medicine, all contributed to re- 
compense and recruit the weary and exhausted 
voyagers ; and, perhaps, never men enjoyed a 
larger quantity of the purest physical pleasure, 
than did Columbus and his sailors for the re- 
mainder of the October that had commenced so 
fearfully, but had so soon afforded such happy 
auspices. 

As they proceeded slowly toward the south, 
and island after island met their view, at each 
the inquiry was, Whether gold or spices were 
found there ? The answer was always the 
same ; but the farther south they sailed, the 
more definite became the reports concerning a 
large country to be found in that direction. At 
length, on the 28Lh of October, they came in 
sight of Cuba. This noble island, though very 
narrow, scarcely ever a hundred and fifty miles 
from sea to sea, and sometimes much less, ex- 
tends, in a diagonal direction, from r.orth-west. 



96 COLUMBUS. 

where its highest latitude is 23°, to south-east, 
where it is not quite 20°, not less than eight 
hundred miles. Columbus made the land on 
the north side, about a third of the distance 
from its lowest extremity, toward its higher 
one. He was deeply impressed with the mag- 
nificent views of the plains, and valleys, and 
lofty mountains of the island. He sailed along 
the coast slowly toward the north, and began at 
length to believe he had reached continental 
Asia. At one place, hearing of a great prince 
in the interior, he thought they were talking of 
Cublay-Khan, of Tartary, and sent a deputa- 
tion to him, with presents from the Spanish 
Sovereigns. One who was sent was a converted 
Jew, who was acquainted with Hebrew, and the 
Chaldaic and Arabic tongues. They penetrated 
about twelve leagues into the island, and then 
came to a village with fifty houses, and about a 
thousand inhabitants ; but nothing was there to 
indicate what these ambassadors sought. The 
learned languages were of no avail, and their 
Indian interpreter had to be employed. They 
were received with great kindness ; but they saw 
no marks either of an advanced state of society, 
or of the possession of wealth. The population 
was thin, and the land very partially and rudely 
cultivated. On their return, however, they were 



DISCOVERT OF AMERICA. 97 

much struck by what they observed to be a 
common practice. Certain dried leaves of an 
herb were rolled up, so as to form a tight roll 
rather larger than a finger. One end of this 
was lit, and the other put into the mouth, that 
the smoke might first be drawn up, and then 
puffed out. This was not very far from what 
is now the chief city of the island, Havanna. 
To these little rolls the natives gave the name 
of " tobacco," a name which has since been 
transferred to the weed itself, from the leaves 
of which the inhabitants made the rolls ; and 
this was evidently their primitive manner of 
using it. 

Columbus was satisfied that such a people as 
he sought was not to be found in Cuba. He, 
however, kept coasting, till, had he proceeded 
much farther, he would have arrived at the 
most westerly point of the island, now Cape St. 
Antonio, whence across to Yucatan, on the op- 
posite shores of Mexico, is not much above a 
hundred miles. But he here heard, that not 
far from the eastern point of Cuba was a large 
island, where, though the people were very 
warlike, (some said they had only one eye,) they 
had plenty of gold. Columbus now resolved to 
coast back to the south-east, though uncertain 
whether Cuba was island or continent. Soon 
7 



98 COLUMBUS. 

after he turned back, however, a most untoward 
event occurred. The " Pinta," commanded by 
Martin Alonzo Pinzon, was the best sailer ; and 
being considerably ahead, Columbus made sig- 
nals to him to shorten sail, to which the captain 
paid no attention. These were repeated during 
the night, by lights at the mast-head ; but in 
the morning, the vessel was no longer to be 
seen. It afterward appeared that Pinzon had 
heard of this land to the eastward, where gold 
abounded, and that he and his crew had re- 
solved to sail directly for it, and secure its 
advantages for themselves. Columbus deeply 
felt the desertion, but continued his own coasting 
course, and at length arrived at the eastern 
end of the island, around which he sailed for a 
little distance. But one day, taking a rather 
wider offing than usual, he perceived high moun- 
tains in the horizon to the south-east. He 
immediately made sail in that direction ; and 
soon arrived at the island long called Hispaniola, 
now generally known under the name of St. 
Domingo and Hayti, one of the most beautiful 
and magnificent islands in the world. It was 
on the evening of the 6th of December, that he 
entered a harbor at the western end of the 
island, to which he gave the name of St. Nicholas : 
the inhabitants, however, had fled from their 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 99 

dwellings, and it was not till he had sailed far- 
ther along the coast, and made several inef- 
fectual attempts, that he was at length successful. 
But here, as elsewhere, he found the same 
general state of society, the same general cir- 
cumstances of the people. One well acquainted 
with the true principles of social wealth, would 
have seen abundant means of securing it ; but 
of wealth, according to the ideas then attached 
to it, no other traces were found than in the 
golden ornaments which some possessed, though 
of the source whence originally procured they 
could give no certain account. Of its value 
they had no particular notion, readily exchanging 
their ornaments for trifling European trinkets. 
Their hospitality could only furnish fish, fruits, 
and cassava-bread; but it was exercised with 
the most unsuspecting freedom. With one 
chief, or cacique, on the coast, he became ac- 
quainted, and received a message from another, 
Guacanagari by name, whose power was ac- 
knowledged by all that part of the island, inviting 
him to visit a place on the coast, a little farther 
to the eastward, where he resided. The party 
who were sent to this chieftain brought back so 
favorable an account, that Columbus resolved 
to accept his invitation. Early in the morning 
of the 24th of December he sailed for this pur- 



100 COLUMBUS. 

pose, and a little before midnight had arrived 
within a couple of leagues of the place he had 
to visit. The wfcather was fine, and the sea 
calm, so that the Admiral, whose careful atten- 
tion scarcely ever ceased, thought he might take 
the repose which he felt that he needed. Giving 
strict orders for watchfulness, he retired to his 
cabin. But the appearances of safety were too 
seductive to those whom he left on deck, and 
who had neither his responsibility nor his 
thoughtfulness. Thinking that all was right, 
one by one, those who ought to have watched 
fell fast asleep. The steersman, too, against 
the rule which forbade such a proceeding at 
any time, gave the helm in charge to a boy, 
whom he told to keep awake for a time while 
he rested himself; and thus, above and below, 
all were sleepers, save the boy at the helm, 
who understood nothing of the management of 
the vessel, even could he have observed its 
course. Unknown to any one, the ship was 
now under the influence of a smooth, but power- 
ful current ; and before long struck violently on 
a sand-bank. Columbus felt the shock, and 
hastened on deck, where he witnessed the neg- 
ligence consequent on his own brief retirement 
for necessary repose. He stood there and wit- 
nessed the deck empty, and the vessel aground. 



DISCOVERT OF AMERICA. 101 

The sailing-master almost immediately followed 
him, but he ought not to have left his post ; 
and the crew came up in the confusion of sud- 
denly awakened men. They were required to 
carry an anchor astern, to assist in getting off 
the vessel ; but when they were in the boat, 
instead of promptly obeying orders, they rowed 
off to the caravel commanded by Vincent Pin- 
zon, then at some little distance, thus giving 
time for the vessel to be more deeply embedded 
in the sand. Pinzon was happily alive to the 
threatening danger, and sharply reproving the 
men in the boat for their cowardice in merely 
thinking of their own safety, and leaving their 
companions, for what they knew or cared, to 
perish, he refused to allow them to come on 
board, and not only ordered them back, but, 
directing his own boat to be at once manned, 
he hastened to the assistance of Columbus. 

And it was time. The vessel had been driven 
farther upon the bank, and the keel was £0 fixed 
in the sand, that the cutting away the mast pro- 
duced no benefit. The seams began to open, 
and the waves, calm as, happily, the sea was, 
beat on her with sufficient force to throw her 
over on one side. Had the weather been stormy, 
all must have been lost. As it was, Columbus 
and most of his crew had to leave the vessel, 



102 COLUMBUS. 

and take refuge for the remainder of the night 
on board the caravel, anxiously waiting for 
morning, when they hoped for assistance from 
the shore, to deliver them from the terrible 
consequences resulting from heedlessness. No 
one had intended to do any harm. The weather 
was fine ; all was right. '' Surely we may just 
have an hour's sleep, when we will return to 
our posts with redoubled diligence." Thus the 
crew most likely reasoned, if such abandon- 
ment of the soul to present feeling is to be 
called reasoning; and thus reasoning, no one 
meaning to do harm, the vessel was wrecked, 
and had Providence permitted the wind to 
freshen, and the waves to rise, vessel and crew 
might have been lost. The commander of the 
caravel well knew his duty, and not only at 
once ordered the men who had rowed to his 
vessel to return, but with a party of his own 
crew followed them, to render aid to his com- 
panions in this perilous exigency. But nothing 
could be done till morning came, and then mes- 
sengers were sent to give information to the 
friendly Cacique. Assistance was promptly 
rendered, and everything was removed from 
the wreck to the shore. Nothing was pilfered, 
and every accommodation that native kindness 
could afford was given, in a manner the most 



DISCOVERT OF AMERICA. 103 

affectionate. The Cacique collected a number 
of his people, by whom various of their games 
were performed. Columbus, also, caused his 
men to go through the European military ma- 
noeuvres. The Indians were most of all im- 
pressed by the firing of a cannon, loaded with 
a ball, the effect of which, upon the trees, against 
which it was directed, they witnessed with equal 
surprise and terror. They called the Spaniards 
" Sons of Heaven," who had come to their pro- 
tection armed with thunder and lightning. They 
soon saw the value attached by their visitors to 
gold, which themselves regarded chiefly as aa 
ornament Very willingly did they part with 
it in exchange for trifling European articles ; 
and Columbus was informed that among some 
of the mountains of the island it was found in 
considerable quantities. He could not rid him- 
self of his notions respecting Cipango, (Japan,) 
and began now to think that this was the 
island. Some of the men, too, perceiving the 
easy life which the natives led, and contrasting 
the beauty of the place, and the present fine- 
ness of the weather, with the hardships which 
they anticipated on their voyage, began to 
indulge the wish of remaining where they 
were. This at length was mentioned to Co- 
Iambus, who, medita^g on it, formedl the 



104 COLUMBUS. 

design of thus laying the foundation of a colony. 
The wreck of the vessel would furnish mate- 
rials for the construction of a fortress ; and 
during his absence, the men who remained 
might acquire the native language, explore the 
island, and collect gold. Such were his plans ; 
and had they whom he left been animated by 
his spirit, the results might have been equally 
beneficial to themselves, their new acquaint- 
ances, and their country. When will men learn 
that such is the established order of human 
affairs, in the administration of a Providence 
always supreme, that where the rules of recti- 
tude are abandoned, whatever present gratifica- 
tion may be obtained, solid and permanent 
prosperity cannot possibly be secured ? 

While engaged in preparing both for his own 
return, and the establishment of the infant colo- 
ny, Columbus heard that another vessel had an- 
chored at the eastern end of the island. Know- 
ing that his own ships alone had penetrated thus 
far across the ocean, he at once concluded that 
it was the " Pinta," and immediately dispatched 
a canoe, with an earnest request that Pinzon 
would lose no time in rejoining him. The ca- 
noe returned unsuccessful; and Columbus was 
now oppressed by anxiety respecting his own 
circumstances. The remaining caravel was 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 105 

scarcely sea-worthy, and a long voyage over a 
stormy ocean was before him. The wreck of 
this one vessel, he felt, would amount to the 
failure of the whole voyage. Who should then 
convey information to Spain, of the discoveries 
he had effected? And who, when nothing was 
ever heard of the first voyagers, would venture 
to undertake a similar enterprise ? But his mind 
was not constituted to yield to difficulties, when 
an important object was before him. His uni- 
form plan was to prepare to encounter them 
wisely, and, by thus encountering, to surmount 
them. The first thing to be accomplished was 
the erection of the fortress; and this, by the 
constant labor of the men, assisted by the friend- 
ly Indians, was completed in less than a fort- 
night. From the number who wished to remain, 
he selected thirty-nine in whom he thought he 
could place most confidence, and appointed the 
officers who should command in his absence. 
He gave them rules for their conduct, both to 
each other and to the natives ; rules which, had 
they been observed with a fidelity correspond- 
ing to the wisdom with which they were framed, 
would have prevented the first records of Euro- 
pean colonization in the West Indies, in St. Do- 
mingo especially, from being inscribed in charac- 
ters of blood ; and the natives would not have 



106 COLUMBUS. 

seen, in the first Christians whose character 
they were called to contemplate, the exemplifi- 
cations of sensuality, rapine, and tyranny. 

As soon as the fortress was completed, the 
remaining caravel was got ready for the home- 
ward voyage, and on the 4th of January, 1493, 
Columbus left La Navidad, and directed his ad- 
venturous prow towards Spain. On the 6th, 
before they were clear of the coast, a sailor from 
the mast-head gave the information that he saw 
a sail at a distance, approaching them with a 
favorable wind. This proved to be the long- 
missing " Pinta." When Pinzon came on board, 
he attributed the separation of the vessels to 
stress of weather; and Columbus, wishing to 
avoid all altercation, appeared to believe him. 
It was afterwards, however, ascertained that 
Pinzon had purposely taken the direction that 
he did ; that he had been for some time at the 
eastern part of Hispaniola, and had collected a 
considerable quantity of gold, half of which he 
had retained for himself, and divided the remain-^ 
der among his crew, to purchase their secrecy. 
He had likewise carried off* four Indian men and 
two girls, to be sold for slaves in Spain. Colum- 
bus sailed to the place where Pinzon had so long 
been, and, though with great, opposition from 
bim, ordered the Indians to be restored. He 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 107 

then sailed into a large bay, still farther east, 
where he found the natives very savage and fe- 
rocious. For the first time, hostilities broke out, 
and in the skirmish several Indians were slain. 
On the following day, however, the Cacique and 
his people, conscious, perhaps, of the immeasur- 
able superiority which their fire-arms gave to 
the whites, were as peaceable as though nothing 
had occurred of a contrary nature, and received 
with thankfulness the presents which were made 
to them. The name of this Cacique of " Ciquay" 
was Mayonabex: he subsequently was found 
acting, in very trying circumstances, with much 
courage and magnanimity. On leaving this bay, 
four young Indians were taken along with them, 
as guides to the islands where the warlike Caribs 
were reported to dwell, still farther to the east. 
The men, however, began to be impatient for 
their return; and, as the wind was favorable, 
Columbus resolved now to prosecute his voyage 
directly for home, and leave the task of proceed- 
ing with his discoveries for his next visit. They 
sailed eastward, therefore, meeting with variable, 
but not particularly adverse weather, till the 12th 
of February, when they had made such progress 
that they began to rejoice in hope of soon seeing 
land. On that day, however, a violent storm 
came on, in the course of which the " Pinta** 



108 COLUMBUS. 

was again separated from them. For some time 
they were in imminent danger of perishing, and 
numerous vows of penances and pilgrimages 
were made, to be performed should they be per- 
mitted to escape from the fury of winds and 
waves. The mind of the intrepid Admiral was 
especially exercised. If, as he feared, the Pinta 
were lost, the whole account of his discoveries 
would remain in his own bark, now scarcely sea- 
worthy. That the memory of his expedition 
should perish, was more distressing to him even 
than the thoughts of his children, orphans as they 
then would be. To guard as far as possible 
against this, he wrote an account of his discove- 
ries on parchment, placed it in the midst of a 
cake of wax, and fastening the whole in a cask, 
so constructed as to be water-tight, he cast it into 
the sea. After the third day, happily, the storm 
abated, and on the 15th of February they came 
in sight of St. Mary's, the southern island of the 
Azores, belonging to the King of Portugal. 
The wind, however, was so baffling, that it was 
two or three days before they could anchor. 
There fresh trials awaited them. The Portu- 
guese Monarch, jealous of the undertaking which 
he had at first refused to patronize, had issued 
orders to the governors of the different settle- 
ments, if Columbus, returning, should call at any 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 109 

of them, to seize and detain him. Several at- 
tempts were here made with this object, but they 
proved unsuccessful ; and on February 24th he 
was permitted to depart for Spain. He soon ex- 
perienced a renewal of the tempestuous weather, 
and was for several days in greater danger than 
ever. Land was at length seen ; and though it 
was near the mouth of the Tagus, and he had 
reason to doubt of the reception he should meet 
in Portugal, such was the shattered state of his 
vessel, that no choice was left him ; and in the 
afternoon of March fourth he anchored in the 
river, bringing to Europe the momentous intelli- 
gence of the discovery of a new quarter of 
the globe. 

Columbus lost no time in sending a messenger 
to the King and Queen of Spain. At Lisbon 
all was astonishment. He was invited to the 
court, where those who had opposed his project 
when first presented there, were filled with envy 
at his success. By the King, however, he was 
received generously, though he now deeply re- 
gretted his former conduct, and refused to listen 
to proposals made for the detention, and even 
the assassination, of the bold and skillful naviga- 
tor, who had himself realized the predictions 
which so many had scoffed. He was permitted 
to seat himself in the royal presence j to the ac- 



110 COLUMBUS. 

count he gave of his voyage, and its results, the 
most eager attention was paid ; and orders were 
given that whatever he needed to recruit his 
sailors and repair his vessel, should be furnished 
at free cost. He was escorted back to his ship 
by a numerous train, calling on his way at a 
monastery where the Queen was, with the ladies 
of her court, to whom, likewise, he recited his, 
to them, wonderful adventures. At length, all 
being ready for sea, and the weather having be- 
come moderate, he left the Tagus on the 13th 
of March, sailing southward along a well-known 
coast ; and in two days, on the 15th, seven months 
and a half after having quitted it on the greatest 
enterprise of modern times, he entered the har- 
bor of Palos. And who can tell the feelings 
with which he would sail into the place in the 
neighborhood of which he had experienced so 
much anxiety ? Who can tell, above all, the feel- 
ings with which the vessel would be seen by the 
inhabitants ? From the midst of them the crew 
had been taken. The departure of the little fleet 
had been witnessed with an almost hopeless de- 
spondency. Few expected ever to behold their 
friends again, — scarcely any to witness their re- 
turn, in the full triumph of success. Who can 
doubt that when the ship was first recognized, 
the tidings would be even rapturously communi- 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. HI 

cated ? From house to house the cry would be, 
" Columbus is come back !" It was soon known, 
too, that he had discovered new countries, some 
of the productions and inhabitants of which were 
on board. All business for that day came to an 
end. The bells rang merrily. And, happily, 
what soon might have been cause of mourning 
was removed. Of three vessels that had sailed, 
only one had entered the port ; but almost be- 
fore there was time to inquire whether mourn- 
ing for the lost was to be mingled with joy for 
the found, — before night set in, and the time for 
fireside reflection came, — the " Pinta'* entered 
the harbor, and anchored by the side of her com- 
rade. They had been driven by stress of wea- 
ther into the Bay of Biscay, and had put into 
the port of Bayonne, whence Pinzon had writ- 
ten to court, informing the Monarchs of the dis- 
coveries that had been made, and requesting per- 
mission to state what had occurred personally. 
He then sailed for Palos, it is to be feared hop- 
ing that he would arrive there first ; but he was 
disappointed. He landed privately, an excep- 
tion to the general joy ; though a melancholy, 
yet a most instructive example of the evil of 
yielding to temptation, and departing from the 
plain track of duty. He was one of the first 
who had been convinced of the soundness of the 



112 COLUMBUS. 

arguments of Columbus; had stood by him, 
along with the Prior of the convent of Rabida, 
when he was almost friendless ; and when it had 
been resolved to undertake the voyage, he had 
not only employed all his influence in its favor, 
but embarked his property in the enterprise, 
and courageously resolved personally to share all 
its dangers. Unhappily, when its main object 
had been secured, whether prompted by envy 
or by avarice, he allowed himself to be subdued 
by the desire of appropriating its honors to him- 
self, and departed from his associates, both hop- 
ing to acquire more wealth, and to be the first 
to announce success. Even after rejoining Co- 
lumbus, before they left the New AYorld behind 
them, the jealousy remained rankling in his bo- 
som. It is a melancholy fact, but one that is 
substantiated by all researches into the moral 
nature of man, that a merely human repentance 
is seldom powerful enough to induce him who 
has done wrong, thoroughly to forgive those 
whom he has attempted to injure, even though 
they may have forgiven him. The doer of wrong 
is often far more resentful than he who suffers 
it. Pinzon soon received letters forbidding his 
appearance at court, and censuring his desertion 
of his superior officer, in whose honors a perse- 
vering uprightness would have given him a large 



DISCOVERT OF AMERICA. 113 

share. To physical weakness, mental suffering 
was now added, and their united influence brought 
him in a few days to his tomb. 



CHAPTER XII. 

COLUMBUS AT COURT. 

The first act of Columbus, on landing at Palos, 
was what might have been anticipated. His 
piety, if blended with the obscuring errors of 
the day, was sincere and decided, and always 
influencing his practice. He had returned in 
safety from a difficult and dangerous voyage. 
He had achieved a discovery, whose importance, 
stretching out into the measureless future, far 
exceeded even his powers of estimation. Deep- 
ly impressed by the goodness of God, both in 
preserving him, and making him the instrument 
of bringing such information before the world, 
as soon as he landed, he and his men walked in 
procession to church, to " offer unto God thanks- 
giving, and to pay their vows to the Most High." 
Going and returning, his progress was almost 
like an ancient triumph. The joyous shout of 
the people filled the air as this procession of 
mariners, with the Hero of Discovery at their 
head, passed along the crowded streets. What 
8 



114 COLUMBUS. 

an instance of the value of persevering toil in 
obedience to well-studied conviction ! Six years 
previously, he had landed at that very place 
with his youthful son, an obscure individual, so 
destitute that he was glad to receive the kindly 
bestowed alms of the convent by which he had 
to pass, his only wealth that conviction, of which 
he never lost hold, of the existence of a new 
world beyond the stormy Atlantic, waiting to 
disclose its secrets to the bold voyager who 
should go in quest of them. Through difficul- 
ties and discouragements, and finally through 
dangers, to this conviction he was faithful. He 
persevered, succeeded, and obtained his recom- 
pense. 

Ferdinand and Isabella were then holding 
their court at Barcelona ; and as soon as they 
received the news of the return of Columbus, 
he was sent for to give the account of his pro- 
ceedings. Barcelona is almost at the northern 
extremity of the eastern coast of Spain, as Palos 
is almost at the southern extremity of its west- 
ern coast. Columbus would have to traverse 
Spain by nearly its longest diagonal. Three 
hundred and fifty years ago, traveling was not 
so expeditious as it is at the present day : and 
he had to take with him, to exhibit to his royal 
master and mistress, both the natives of the 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 115 

Western Indies, and the specimens of the vari- 
ous productions of the islands which he had 
brought home. His progress, therefore, was 
unavoidably slow. " He took with him on his 
journey," says Mr. Prescott, " specimens of the 
multifarious products of the newly discovered 
regions. He was accompanied by several of 
the native islanders, arrayed in their simple 
barbaric costume, and decorated, as he passed 
through the principal cities, with collars, brace- 
lets, and other ornaments of gold, rudely fashion- 
ed : he exhibited also considerable quantities 
of the same metal in dust or in crude masses, 
numerous vegetable exotics possessed of aro- 
matic or medicinal virtue, and several kinds of 
quadrupeds unknown in Europe, and birds 
whose varieties of gaudy plumage gave a bril- 
liant effect to the pageant. The Admiral's pro- 
gress through the country Avas everywhere im- 
peded by the multitudes thronging forth to gaze 
at the extraordinary spectacle, and the more 
extraordinary man, who, in the emphatic lan- 
guage of that term, which has now lost its force 
from its familiarity, first revealed the existence 
of a ' New World.' As he passed through the 
busy, populous city of Seville, every window, 
balcony, and house-top, which could afford a 
glimpse of him, was crowded with spectators." 



116 COLUMBUS. 

And the multitude was all the greater, that not 
only the inhabitants of the places through which 
he had to pass, but of those from a distance on 
either side the line of road, traveled to the point 
where they might be able to see the astonishing 
exhibition. This triumphant progress occupied 
nearly a month. " It was the middle of April" 
(we again quote from Mr. Prescott) " before 
Columbus reached Barcelona. The nobility 
and cavaliers in attendance on the court, to- 
gether with the authorities of the city, came to 
the gates to receive him, and escorted him to 
the royal presence. Ferdinand and Isabella 
were seated, with their son. Prince John, under 
a superb canopy of state, awaiting his arrival. 
On his approach they rose from their seats, and, 
extending their hands to him to salute, caused 
him to be seated before them. These were un- 
precedented marks of condescension to a person 
of Columbus's rank, in the haughty and cere- 
monious court of Castile. It was, indeed, the 
proudest moment in the life of Columbus. He 
had fully established the truth of his long-con- 
tested theory, in the face of argument, sophis- 
try, sneer, skepticism, and contempt. He had 
achieved this, not by chance, but by calculation, 
supported through the most adverse circum- 
stances by consummate conduct. The honors 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 117 

paid him, which had hitherto been reserved only 
for rank, or fortune, or military success, pur- 
chased by the blood and tears of thousands, 
were, in his case, a homage to intellectual power, 
successfully exerted in behalf of the noblest 
interests of humanity. 

"After a brief interval, the Sovereigns re- 
quested from Columbus a recital of his adven- 
tures. His manner was sedate and dignified, 
but warmed by the glow of natural enthusiasm. 
He enumerated the several islands which he 
had visited, expatiated on the temperate cha- 
racter of the climate, and the capacity of the 
soil for every variety of agricultural production, 
appealing to the samples imported by him as 
evidence of their natural fruitfulness. He 
dwelt more at large on the precious metals to 
be found in these islands ; which he inferred, 
less from the specimens actually obtained, than 
from the uniform testimony of the natives to 
their abundance in the unexplored regions of 
the interior. Lastly, he pointed out the wide 
scope afforded to Christian zeal in the illumina- 
tion of a race of men, whose minds, far from 
being wedded to any system of idolatry, were 
prepared, by their extreme simplicity, for the 
reception of pure and uncorrupted doctrine. 
The last cpnsideratipn touched Isabella's heart 



118 COLUMBUS. 

most sensibly ; and the whole audience, kindled 
with various emotions by the speaker's elo- 
quence, filled up the perspective with the gor- 
geous coloring of their own fancies, as ambition, 
or avarice, or devotional feeling predominated 
in their bosoms. When Columbus ceased, the 
king and queen, together with all present, pros- 
trated themselves on their knees in grateful 
thanksgivings, while the solemn strains of the 
Te Deum were poured forth by the choir of the 
royal chapel, as in commemoration of some 
glorious victory."* 

Nor was this all. Another paragraph from 
Mr. Prescott's work will serve to complete the 
description of this, the highest merely human 
point in the history of this truly great and de- 
servedly celebrated man. " Columbus, during 
his residence at Barcelona, continued to receive 
from the Spanish sovereigns the most honorable 
distinctions which royal bounty could confer. 
When Ferdinand rode abroad, he was accom- 
panied by the Admiral at his side. The courtiers, 
in emulation of their master, made frequent en- 
tertainments, at which he was treated with the 



* Prescott's " History of the Reigri of Ferdinand and Isabella 
the Catholic, of Spain," vol. ii, pp. 148-151 ; a work equally valu- 
able from the great ability with which it is written, and the vast 
Importance of the subjects on which it treats. 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 119 

punctilious deference paid to a noble of the 
.highest class. But the attentions most grateful 
to his lofty spirit were the preparations of the 
Spanish court for prosecuting his discoveries 
on a scale commensurate with their importance. 
A board was established for the direction of 
Indian affairs, consisting of a superintendent, 
and two subordinate functionaries. The first 
of these officers was Juan de Fonseca, arch- 
deacon of Seville, an active, ambitious prelate, 
subsequently raised to high episcopal prefer- 
ment, whose shrewdness and capacity for busi- 
ness enabled him to maintain the control of the 
Indian department during the whole of the pre- 
sent reign. An office for the transaction of 
business was instituted at Seville, and a custom- 
house placed under its direction at Cadiz. 
This was the origin of the important establish- 
ment of the Casa de la Contratacion de las 
Indias, or India House." 

As to heraldic honors, Columbus was per- 
mitted to quarter the royal arms with his own, 
which consisted of a gi'oup of golden islands 
amid azure billows. To these were afterward 
added five anchors, with the celebrated motto, 
well known as being carved on his sepulchre. 
He received besides, soon after his return, the 
substantial gratuity of a thousand doblas of gold 



120 COLUMBUS. 

from the royal treasury, and the premium of 
ten thousand maravedies, promised to the per- 
son who first descried land.* 



CHAPTER XIII. 
SECOND VOYAGE. 

The remaining portion of the life of Columbus 
may be given with far more brevity than the 
former two portions allowed. His early history, 
the gradual formation of the grand idea of dis- 
covery beyond the hitherto unpassed Atlantic, 
and his persevering efforts to procure the means 
of its realization, constitute the first part ; re- 
markable as exhibiting the workings of a mind 
at once thoughtfully calculating and ardent, 
searching long and thoroughly before deciding, 
but deciding once for all, maintaining the deci- 
sion with firmness, and willing to venture life 
and everything on the experiment. Not less 

* The motto, afterward inscribed on the costly monument 
erected over his remains in the cathedral at Seville, by King 
Ferdinand, was a pretty homely Spanish rhyme, easily imitated 
in English rhyme of the same character. 
A Cast ilia y a Leon 
Nuovo mundo did Colon. 
♦' Castile and Arragon now have 
▲ New World which Columbus gave." 



DISCOVERY OP AMERICA. 121 

remarkable is the second portion, which contains 
the performance of the experiment itself. Ne- 
ver were apparently opposite qualities shown 
in combination more complete, decisive, or ex- 
emplary. Bold, to the very appearance of 
rashness, the boldness was the product of entire 
conviction, as the conviction was the effect of 
long and careful research. Ardent even to 
enthusiasm, the ardency was the fire of slowly- 
collected thought, whose massive solidity was 
not easily nor quickly enkindled; but which, 
once enkindled, burnt with a vehemence which 
no obstacles could resist, and with a steadiness 
which no delay could quench. And along with 
this ardor there was a patient intrepidity which 
no danger could terrify, and which knew equally 
how to advance, and how to wait. In few men 
have the elements of greatness of character 
existed in such happy proportion as each to 
contribute to the strength of the whole ; or been 
developed with such regard to external circum- 
stances, as that all should contribute, each at 
its own time, and all in harmony with each 
other, so as to furnish the proper result. The 
third and concluding part of the life of Colum- 
bus is evidently a portion of the grand epic 
constituted by the whole, and suggests lessons 
not less deserving study than those by which it 



122 COLUMBUS. 

was preceded ; but the events which it includes 
.demand not the same minuteness of attention. 
It may be said that he undertook his second 
voyage in a new character. Before, he had to 
open the way on which subsequent laborers had 
to proceed. But, after his return from his first 
voyage, the work of original discovery was 
completed. And had he paused here, and done 
no more, his character as a discoverer would 
have stood as high as now it does. The problem 
was solved. Others might have been left for 
the work of its practical application. Now it 
is as though, having forced the entry, he re- 
turned, not that others might pass through the 
door which he had found and opened, but that 
he himself might in this respect be the leader 
of his followers. To liim was the double honor 
allotted, first, of being the sole discoverer of the 
New World, and, secondly, of being the first 
of a long list of enterprising travelers who have 
labored at the task of particular description. 
We do not say that there is nothing new to ex- 
hibit ; but this will be found to belong rather 
to the history of the 7nan, — to his history in his 
more fully developed character, rather than in 
his more largely prosecuted works. 

The opinion entertained by Columbus him- 
self, that Cuba was the end of the Asiatic 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 123 

continent, wa3 likewise generally adopted. 
Disputes might, therefore, arise on the subject 
with the crown of Portugal, to which all dis- 
coveries to the east had been confirmed by a 
Papal Bull. Ferdinand now solicited a similar 
authority for those made by his officers. The 
reigning Pontiff was Alexander VI., a man as 
eminent for vice, as those whose successor he 
pretended to be were for holiness : he was, how- 
ever, crafty and able. In his application Fer- 
dinand had been careful to insinuate, that he 
should maintain his rights by force, if they were 
not otherwise confirmed. A Bull was therefore 
issued, dated May 2d, 1493.* An ideal line 
was drawn from pole to pole, a hundred leagues 
west of the Azores ; and to all countries dis- 
covered westward of this line, the Pope granted 
the same rights as were possessed by the Portu- 
guese in regard to those which lay to its east- 
ward. The successor of the apostles, who said, 
" Silver and gold have we none," thus claimed 
the right of partitioning the world between con- 
tending sovereigns ! Thus, however, confirmed, 
as he believed, in the legitimate possession of 

* In consequence of subsequent disputes between the two 
crowns, another Bull was issued June 4th, 1494, removing the 
dividing-line to three hundred and seventy leagues west of the 
Cape de Verde Islands. A singular consequence of this altera- 
tion was, that Brazil became the property of Portugal. 



124 COLUMBUS. 

his claims, Ferdinand lost no time in causing a 
second expedition to be fitted out. Twelve 
ecclesiastics were likewise to accompany it, to 
promote among the Indians the work of con- 
version to the Christian faith. And as now 
there was no suspicion of anything chimerical 
in the undertaking, the preparations were more 
on a scale corresponding to its admitted im- 
portance and magnitude. 

The excitement occasioned by the recital of 
Columbus brought him many adventurers, re- 
questing to be permitted to accompany him. 
Some were influenced by avarice, some by the 
love of romantic enterprise. Among the ca- 
valiers was one of the name of Alonzo de Ojeda, 
a young man of good family, and expert in all the 
exercises then considered necessary for a brave 
and accomplished cavalier, — the term knight 
having become disused. During the prepara- 
tion, disputes several times arose between Co- 
lumbus, and the persons employed to superintend 
it. This was particularly the case with Juan de 
Fonseca, an able but malignant and vindictive 
ecclesiastic. Columbus had to appeal to Fer- 
dinand, who decided in his favor, and even 
reprimanded Fonseca. But in this victory were 
the seeds of future ill. Fonseca became the 
bitter enemy of Columbus j and from his posi- 



DISCOVERT OF AMERICA. 125 

tion at the head of Indian affairs, which he' 
maintained for thirty years, he had many oppor- 
tunities of gratifying his rancorous temper ; and 
in after-times Columbus was made repeatedly 
to feel this, and at length to drink to the very 
dregs the cup of degradation. 

If the departure from Palos on the first voy- 
age was gloomy, the second, from Cadiz, was 
altogether of a different character. There were 
three large ships of heavy burden, and fourteen 
caravels. The number of persons permitted 
to sail was one thousand; but some were per- 
mitted to go without pay, and others, so great 
was the enthusiasm, embarked by stealth, so 
that, on the whole, Columbus was accompanied 
by fifteen hundred persons. Crowds thronged 
all the way to the shore, and he put off with 
the acclamations of the joyous multitude. He 
first sailed direct to the Canaries, where he 
took on board live stock, plants, and seeds, for 
Hispaniola. Departing for his main voyage, 
October ISth, he lost sight of Ferro, (north 
latitude about 27j°,) and steered nearly a south- 
westerly course, which brought him to land 
much earlier, as the Antilles lie about in 60° 
west longitude, ranging from 20° to 10°, north 
latitude. At day-break, November 2d, twenty- 
eight days sooner than on his former voyage, 



126 COLUMBUS. 

he came to an island, to which, having been 
first seen on the Sunday, he gave the name of 
Dominica. Guadaloupe was next discovered, 
a little to the north ; and here the Spaniards 
first saw the pine-apple. Traces of cannibalism 
were likewise perceived. Others of the Car- 
ribbean islands were discovered : at one of them, 
where the inhabitants were very ferocious, the 
Spaniards had an encounter with them, in 
which the women fought as desperately as the 
men. One of the Spaniards died a few days 
after, from a wound made by a poisoned arrow. 
Keeping to the westward, the large island of 
Porto Rico was discovered, from the western 
extremity of which to the eastern cape of St. 
Domingo was a plain sail of about sixty miles. 
He arrived there November 22d. Touching 
one day on the coast, on their way to La Na- 
vidad, two or three bodies were found on the 
shore, in a state of decay, but with evident 
marks of violence. One of them, at least, was 
a European. This event produced the utmost 
anxiety for the colony, to which they now 
hastened, and, arriving there on the 27th of 
November, had their worst fears realized. After 
much inquiry, it was found that the Spaniards 
had quarreled among themselves, and, instead 
of either industriously prosecuting the designs 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 127 

of Columbus, or keeping good order, many spent 
their time indolently among the Indians. A 
neighboring cacique, a Carib, by name Caonabo, 
formed the design of surprising them. This he 
did most effectually. He came on the fortress 
by night, in which were only ten men : the rest 
were in the village, where they were living in 
sensual, lawless security. The Spaniards in 
the fort all lost their lives. The friendly In- 
dians were defeated, and many of the whites 
massacred, and the settlement was completely 
broken up. Neither gold nor any other valu- 
able articles had been collected, and the con- 
querors had carried off the property of the white 
men as their booty. Columbus, however deeply 
he felt the occurrence, lost no time in seeking 
to remedy it. He chose a better place, by a 
harbor ten leagues to the eastward, in a strong 
position, for his projected colony, where he laid 
the foundation of a town. And now began his 
troubles. They who had accompanied him had 
expected to live an easy life, and to collect gold 
almost at their will. When they were called 
to labor in the construction of the buildings, and 
found that gold was only to be collected gradu- 
ally, and with care, they became dissatisfied and 
turbulent ; and Columbus saw that the prospect 
before him was full of difficulties. He had, 



128 COLUMBUS. 

also, promised to send some of the vessels back 
to Spain with the gold, and other articles, which 
he expected to find ready. Nothing was pro- 
vided. An expedition into the interior was 
planned, under the command of Don Alonzo de 
Ojeda. On reaching the mountains, they saw 
that the gold was contained in the sands of the 
rivers flowing down from them. They brought 
home all they could find. Ojeda picked up a 
mass of rude gold weighing nine ounces. Co- 
lumbus sent seven caravels back to Spain, as 
well loaded as his circumstances allowed, and 
detailed the history of the disasters which had 
occurred. But in the colony, the seeds of anger 
and sedition were rapidly growing among the 
number of factious and disappointed men there. 
A conspiracy was formed, headed by the con- 
troller, to take advantage of an illness of Co- 
lumbus, (brought on by anxiety and fatigue, 
and which, for some time, confined him to his 
bed,) to seize on the ships in the harbor, and 
return to Spain. It was discovered before it 
broke out. The leader was sent home to Spain 
for trial ; and others were punished, though not 
as they deserved. And now another difficulty 
became apparent. Columbus was a foreigner, 
with no friends in Spain but those procured by 
his merits. The conspirators were Spaniards ; 



DISCOVERY OP AMERICA. 129 

with whom even the better disposed sympathized 
as their fellow-countrymen, and at home their 
connections were numerous — of some of them, 
powerful. Hoping that activity would calm the 
disturbed spirits of his people, he projected a 
powerful expedition into the interior, which he 
commenced on the 12th of March, leaving his 
brother Diego to command at Isabella (the name 
of the new city) during his absence. They 
penetrated into the region where gold was most 
plentiful, and in one place he began to build a 
fortress, naming it St. Thomas. The inhabit- 
ants were found to be such as they had hitherto 
mostly appeared to be ; and having acquired all 
the information in his power, he returned, with 
the gold and other articles gathered in the 
progress, to Isabella. Alarming intelligence 
soon arrived from Fort St. Thomas. The In- 
dians had become unfriendly, and an attack 
from Caonabo was anticipated. To render this 
still more distressing, maladies, arising from 
change of climate and diet, had broken out 
among the colonists, augmenting the prevalent 
dissatisfaction. He made what arrangements 
he could for the safety of the people, established 
a junta of government under his brother Diego, 
and, leaving two of his largest vessels in the 
harbor, on the 29th of April sailed for further 



130 COLUMBUS. 

discoveries in Cuba. He resolved to coast 
along its south side, hoping to arrive at the do- 
minions of the Grand Khan ; an illusion which, 
in one form or another, influenced him to the 
last. After having pursued this course some 
days, and still being pointed to the south for the 
golden country, on the 2d of May he steered in 
that direction, and soon came in sight of Jamaica. 
He found the inhabitants both more ingenious 
and warlike than those of Cuba and Hayti ; but, 
after coasting to its western end, and finding no 
more of the great object of his quest than usual, 
he returned to Cuba, and slowly proceeded 
westward, but still only perceiving the same 
general objects. His crews became, at length, 
dissatisfied ; and though they would soon have 
arrived at the western extremity, insisted so 
strongly on returning, that he was obliged to 
comply. Again touching at Jamaica, August 
20th, he made the western end of Hayti, sailed 
along the southern coast of the island, and had 
resolved to complete the discovery of the Carib- 
bean islands, when, worn out by the fatigues 
and anxieties he had experienced since his ar- 
rival, his health entirely gave way ; he sank into 
a death-like lethargy, and in a state of insensi- 
bility was conveyed to Isabella. 

After recovering his recollection, he rejoiced 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 131 

to see his brother Bartholomew, who, after his 
journey to England, had been captured by a 
corsair on his return, and did not reach Spain 
till after his brother had left on his second voy- 
age. As he was an able navigator, the Sove- 
reigns intrusted him with the command of three 
vessels with supplies for the new settlements ; 
and he had arrived at Isabella just before 
Columbus was brought there dangerously ill. 
He was the more thankful for this arrival of 
one in whose fidelity and talents he could repose 
implicit confidence, because, in his absence, 
avarice, licentiousness, indolence, and pride, 
had done their work, and the whole island was 
a scene of violence and discord. The cacique, 
Caonabo, had taken advantage of the Spanish 
dissensions, and mingling the craft with the 
ferocious bravery of the savage warrior-chief, 
he had sought the destruction of the new-comers. 
The vigilance, courage, and activity of Don 
Alonzo de Ojeda, however, combined with 
European discipline, and the possession of fire- 
arms, rendered his attacks abortive ; but hosti- 
lities were unceasing, and the affairs of the 
colony in the most critical condition. Dissatis- 
faction, too, was extensive. Labor and fighting 
were not the objects for which the majority had 
left Spain ; and, in the bitterness of disappoint- 



132 COLUMBUS. 

merit, they considered themselves as injured by 
Columbus. His great object, however, was the 
defeat of the hostile Indians. By a bold strata- 
gem, conceived and executed by Ojeda, he ob- 
tained possession of the person of his most 
dangerous foe, Caonabo, who was imprisoned, 
though otherwise treated well. His brother 
raised a force for his rescue, but was defeated 
by Ojeda. Soon after, Columbus sent some 
vessels to Spain, with reports of his progress, 
and everything valuable he had been able to 
collect ; and knowing that among those who had 
returned were two of his chief enemies, Friar 
Buyl, (or Boyle,) and a Catalonian oflScer, 
Margarite, to whom the command of the fortress 
of St. Thomas had first been intrusted, but who 
had been removed for misbehavior, he sent his 
brother Diego, to explain the real state of things, 
and to defend his authority and character. 

In March, 1495, Columbus learned that seve- 
ral Caciques had united their forces, and M^ere 
preparing to attack the Spaniards. He resolved 
to anticipate their schemes ; and on the 27th of 
March, he formed all the men who were avail- 
able for the purpose into a company, only 
amounting to two hundred infantry, and twenty 
horse ; and with this little army he marched to 
meet the foe, taking along with him twenty 



DlSCOVERr OF AMERICA. 133 

blood-hounds, then, unhappily, introduced into 
West-Indian service. In a few days, by rapid 
inarches, concealing themselves as much as pos- 
sible in the woods, they came to the vega, or 
plain, where a vast number of Indians were 
collected. The plain was nearly surrounded 
by forests, from the shelter of which the attack 
was made, for some time, with fire-arms ; and 
then, when the Indians were thrown into con- 
fusion^ they were charged by Ojeda, and in a 
short time the rout was total. 

Columbus, on his return, assumed the govern- 
ment of the whole island, whose inhabitants, 
according to the notions of the day, had been 
given as subjects to the Spanish crown. A re- 
gular tribute was imposed of gold and cotton, 
and the natives felt that their thraldom was 
complete. 

The enemies of Columbus were now busily 
seeking to undermine his reputation in Spain. 
Saying nothing of the seditions which had called 
for punishment, nor of the idleness and profli- 
gacy which had rendered sometimes enforced 
labor the only preservation from ruin, they gave 
the worst form, and the darkest coloring, to all 
the acts of his government, and even supplied 
matters of charge from their vindictive inven- 
tion. Those, too, who had remained behind, 



134 COLUMBUS. 

and who had expected to be rich at once, and 
to indulge themselves in slothful sensuality, sent 
their reports to their friends in various parts 
of the country. And now appeared one of the 
consequences of the mistaken notions of Colum- 
bus as to the geography of those western coun- 
tries. He believed that his voyage would take 
him to the civilized and wealthy regions of 
Asiatic India ; and when countries and people 
so diiferent were discovered, scarcely any were 
far-sighted enough to perceive the real benefits 
that would ultimately accrue ; but, disappointed 
in their dreams of immediate wealth, they fell 
into the opposite extreme, when the first glow 
of enthusiasm had passed away, of undervaluing 
the splendid discoveries which had actually 
been made, and not only of derogating from the 
merit of the great man by whose knowledge 
and ability they had been achieved, but of re- 
garding him as positively criminal. Fonseca, 
too, was always ready to give credit to these 
charges, and, as far as he could, to enforce them 
at court. Ferdinand appears to have seen 
through them, as well as his enlightened consort: 
but he was crafty and politic ; and especially he 
was both desirous to gain as much as he could 
at as little expense as was possible, and to aljow 
Columbus to possess no power that might, at a 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 135 

subsequent period, become dangerous to the 
supreme authority of the crown. He did not, 
therefore, promptly repel the unjust accusations, 
as did the more noble-minded and generous 
Isabella, who never allowed her favor toward 
him to be shadowed. It was at length resolved 
to send out one Juan Aguado to inquire into 
the circumstances of the colony. He appears 
to have been a weak and vain man ; and when 
he arrived in Hispaniola, it was soon known that 
he was ready to receive all complaints against 
Columbus. The consequences may be at once 
anticipated. Every disappointed man is ready 
to blame any one rather than himself; and 
every evil-doer regards the magistrate as a 
tyrant. Aguado had soon abundant materials 
for his report, and prepared to return to Spain 
with them. Columbus, also, awake to the true 
position of affairs, resolved to return at the 
same time. All was ready for their departure, 
when one of those tremendous storms common 
in tropical climes, — called by the natives uri- 
cans, a name they still retain, — and of greater 
force than usual, swept over the island. Of the 
vessels ready to sail, three sank while at anchor, 
and all on board perished : the others were 
driven on shore, some being total wrecks. While 
the new preparations were making for the voy- 



136 COLUMBUS. 

age which had thus been delayed, most im- 
portant intelligence was received. Hitherto, 
the gold found had been obtained from the sand 
of the mountain torrents; but no places had been 
discovered where the veins of the precious 
metal might be wrought. A young man had fled 
with a young Indian woman, (she was after- 
wards baptized, and regularly married to him,) 
and resided on the opposite side of the island, 
near the present city of St. Domingo. Hoping 
to retain him, and knowing how much the Spa- 
niards valued gold, she took him to several 
places in the mountains, where gold-veins were 
to be seen in the rocks. In the midst of so 
much that is dark and even disgusting in the 
behavior of the bulk of the Spaniards, it is 
pleasing to have one instance to record of virtue 
and nobleness of mind. The young man had 
been in the service of Bartholomew Columbus, 
and knowing the importance of the information 
he could afford, he believed that he should 
obtain pardon for his desertion, and therefore 
returned to state what he had learned. He 
was equally faithful to his Indian bride, and to 
his country. Columbus lost no time in having 
these incipient mines examined, and rejoiced 
that the opportunity of carrying such intelli- 
gence to Spain had been afforded to him. The 



DISCOVERT OF AMERICA. 187 

voyage was long and disastrous. The winds 
were tempestuous and contrary. The vessel 
was crowded ; some of the most factious having 
resolved to return, and others being compelled 
to do so by the failure of their health. The 
usual sufferings of a stormy and protracted pas- 
sage were aggravated by an alarming scarcity 
of provisions. Some who were on board wished 
Columbus to kill for food some of the Indians 
he was taking with him ; and it required all his 
authority and firmness to prevent the execution 
of their horrid proposal. The voyage was at 
length concluded; and on the 11th of June, 
1496, the vessel anchored in the Bay of Cadiz. 
It was as though everything now conspired 
against Columbus. From that port he had 
sailed, with a splendid equipment, and fifteen 
hundred enthusiastic followers, amid the plaudits 
and shouts of a multitude of spectators. One 
shattered vessel returned, with a sickly and half- 
famished crew, and passengers in the same 
condition. Their garments were tattered, their 
countenances sunken and care-worn, and their 
complexion so sallow, that the angry and biting 
jest became common, that " they had brought 
home more gold in their faces than in their 
pockets." Columbus himself, who had put off 
from that very shore a splendidly arrayed cava- 



138 COLUMBUS. 

lier, in glittering armor, came on shore, in 
pursuance of some vow, in the habit of a Fran- 
ciscan friar, his beard long and untrimmed, and 
girt round the waist with the cord of the order. 
He hastened, however, to the court at Burgos, 
carrying with him a number of golden orna- 
ments, and several Indians. He was received 
with favor, and even kindness; but he soon 
perceived that the national enthusiasm had died 
away; that his enemies were numerous and 
powerful, ready to exaggerate his mistakes into 
faults, his faults into high crimes ; in short, to 
view everything in the aspect in which it might 
bear most hardly upon him. But for the reso- 
lution of the Sovereigns, he must have sunk 
under the weight thus imposed upon him. The 
discovery of the gold-mines at Hayti was a 
favorable circumstance; and, perhaps, chiefly 
induced the Sovereigns to comply with his re- 
quest, that two vessels should be dispatched 
with supplies for the colony, and six put under 
his own command for a third voyage of dis- 
covery. But he had to experience many vex- 
atious delays. He felt the enmity of Fonseca 
at every step. And the Spanish exchequer 
was inadequate to the pressing demands then 
made on it through the foreign relations of the 
country. It had been hoped that not only would 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 139 

these new Indies repay the expenses connected 
with their discovery, but materially, and at 
once, improve the finances of the state. Instead 
of this, there was a present and heavy expendi- 
ture, far exceeding the actual returns. Few 
saw that, ultimately, the returns, though slow, 
were certain. Fewer still perceived, or were 
willing to acknowledge, the reason they were 
not greater. Agriculture had been neglected ; 
for the greedy for gold could not condescend to 
labor. The Indians had been so treated, that 
even the little cultivation of the ground to which 
they were accustomed had been resolutely 
omitted, as they hoped, at the hazard of starving 
themselves, to starve out their invaders. The 
more able and faithful Spaniards had to be em- 
ployed in conflicts which the wanton and in- 
tolerable outrages of the others had provoked, 
and which were so devastating, that the natives 
were almost exterminated. In four years from 
the first arrival of the Europeans, several hun- 
dred thousands had been made their victims. 
Famine, at one time, was only avoided by a law 
of compulsory labor, and a diminished allowance 
of food. Hence the poverty of the settlement, 
and the torrent of complaints of the settlers. 
" These unpalatable regulations," Mr. Prescott 
has observed, with a keen sense of justice, 



140 COLUMBUS. 

"soon bred general discontent. The high- 
mettled hidalgos, especially, complained loudly 
of the indignity of such mechanical drudgery, 
while Father Boyle and his brethren were 
equally outraged by the diminution of their 
regular rations."* 

The fleet was not ready for Columbus till the 
beginning of 1498 ; and when the vessels were 
equipped, great difficulty was found in manning 
them. The tide of popular feeling had again 
set in against the expedition ; and at length he 
suggested the most unhappy expedient he could 
have imagined, and the bitter fruit of which he 
himself soon felt, of commuting the punishment 
of convicts to transportation for a limited period 
to the West Indies. The growing load of evils 
which had already so oppressed him, arose from 
the bad character and conduct of so many of the 
settlers ; and this measure tended powerfully 
and rapidly to strengthen and increase the mis- 
chief. At length, however, all things being rea- 
dy, he sailed from St. Lucar on May 30th, 1498. 
But, just before he embarked, a painful incident 

* How is it that the followers and disciples of these Father 
Boyles seem always so attached to a hfe of laziness ; that they 
are so ready to complain of all who will not, as a matter of duty, 
feed them in it ; and that they are so ready to engage, not only 
in slanderous accusations, but in acts of violence and outrage ? 
Is there not a cause ? 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 141 

occurred, in which the well-disciplined, strongly- 
governed mind of the man was for once, unhap- 
pily, overcome. The enmity of Fonseca was so 
well known, that even his menial agents were 
encouraged to be insolent. One of them, Xime- 
no de Breviesca, a converted Moor, or Jew, whose 
tongue was unbridled, so provoked Columbus by 
his audacity, that he struck him down and spurn- 
ed him. He had to pause now for his own jus- 
tification. The unguarded act was declared to 
be a proof of his vindictive temper, and harsh- 
ness in government. He entreated the Sove- 
reigns not to allow it to injure him in their opin- 
ion, "but to remember, when anything should be 
said to his disparagement, that he was ' absent, 
envied, and a stranger.'" — Washington Irving, 
" Life of Columbus." 



CHAPTER XIY. 

A THIRD VOYAGE. 

The third voyage of this great man was now 
commenced. From the Madeira islands he dis- 
patched three of his vessels to Hispaniola with 
supplies: with the remaining three he prose- 
cuted his own voyage ; sailing first for the Cape 
de Verde Islands, and thence south-west till he 



142 COLUMBUS. 

arrived in tlie latitude of 5° north. Here the 
weather became calm, and intensely hot. Ulti- 
mately, he availed himself of a light breeze, and 
sailed more northerly. On the 31st of July, 
three mountains were seen from the mast-head. 
Sailing toward them, he came to an island, to 
which, because these three mountains at the base 
were united, he gave the name which it still re- 
tains, Trinidad. Sailing along its south side, he 
saw land stretching along for twenty leagues. 
Supposing it to be another island, he called it. 
La Isla Santa. It was part of the coast of the 
great South American continent, near the mouths 
of the Orinoco, which he then, though not aware 
of it, beheld for the first time. Trinidad seems 
almost as though broken off from the continent. 
Its northern coast runs on as though it were a 
continuation of the coast of the main-land. Just 
opposite its western corner, the main-land sends 
out a long projecting narrow neck, as though to 
meet it, which it almost does. Sou tli ward, it 
recedes again to the west, forming a gulf, bound- 
ed by the main-land on the west, and Trinidad 
on the east. On the north and south the island 
and continent project toward each other; the 
spaces between them are the only entrances from 
the sea. One of the outlets of the Orinoco flows 
into it. This is the Gulf of Paria. Columbus 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 143 

spent a little time here. He was surprised at 
the lessened saltness of the water. He little 
thought that the group of numerous islands were 
formed by the different outlets of a mighty river, 
or that, when he went on shore, he stood then 
on the terra Jirma of a vast continent. From 
the natives he procured a number of pearls, 
many of them of a fine size and quality. The 
fishery for pearls was a gratifying discovery to 
him ; and the various phenomena he witnessed 
so strongly excited his curiosity, that he much 
wished to remain longer for further investigation. 
But his sea-stores were almost exhausted, and 
he was suffering severely from the gout. On 
the 14th of August he left the gulf by its northern 
entrance, and sailed direct for Hispaniola, where 
he arrived wearied, and, through a complaint in 
his eyes, almost blind ; but where he was most 
affectionately welcomed by the Adelantado, or 
Lieutenant-Governor, his brother Bartholomew, 
whom he had invested with that command on 
his departure. 

Columbus found the affairs of the colony in a 
deplorable state. Faction had produced the 
most destructive dissensions. Conspiracies had 
been formed, which required force to put them 
down; and great outrages had been committed 
on the Indians. Thfse were so exasperated, 



144 COLUMBUS. 

that when they beheld the weakness occasioned 
by these quarrels and disturbances, they refused 
to pay the accustomed tribute. A traitor of the 
name of Roldan induced a number of Spaniards 
to accompany him to a part of the island where 
he said they might establish themselves, and live 
easy and happy lives. By happiness he meant 
sensuality. He instigated the Indians to war, 
and the Adelantado and his troops were almost 
wearied out with the incessant toil which hostili- 
ties occasioned. Never was the Christian name 
more fearfully disgraced, and never was the 
moral character of the divine administration 
more clearly visible. The natural operations of 
wickedness not only extinguished what might 
have been a rich and noble prosperity, as advan- 
tageous to the natives as to the settlers, but lit 
up a flame of mischief ultimately destructive of 
the very last Indian, and withered the European 
settlements in their whole progress, till a dread- 
ful revenge, almost in our own day, drove out 
the last white man, and left Hayti the possession 
of the imported Negroes. 

When Columbus arrived, Roldan and his par- 
ty were living in another part of the island. The 
caravels sent by Columbus from the Cape de 
Verde Islands had put in there, and as the captains 
were ignorant of the real state of the island, the 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 145 

rebel was received on board, and soon persuaded 
the half-pardoned convicts on board to join him. 
His strength was so great, that Columbus, though 
superior, felt it necessary to temporize, lest, in 
the weakness of civil war, the Indians should de- 
stroy both. But though an apparent accommo- 
dation was effected, the cause of Columbus was 
deeply injured in Spain. Roldan wrote home, 
and laid all the blame on the brothers. Colum- 
bus simply narrated the affair ; but the tales of 
his enemies found believers, and added to the 
prejudices against him which had already oper- 
ated so powerfully. In such cases, the worse 
side, unless dealt with by justice in its power, 
will always gain the ascendency. For such men 
as this Roldan, not to be punished was a victory. 
For some time matters continued in this pain- 
ful condition. But at home, the power of his 
enemies increased. At every opportunity he 
sent true accounts of the actual state of things ; 
but Fonseca was always ready to receive accu- 
sations, and was supported by the friends of the 
abandoned wretches who were thus building up 
in wickedness Spanish colonization in the New 
World. He was one, and at a distance, and spoke 
only by his letters. His enemies at home and 
abroad were numerous. The settlers opposed 
to him were not men likely to regard truth, and 
10 



146 COLUMBUS. 

their friends in Spain only sought matter of ac- 
cusation. By numbers and perseverance they, 
at length, so far prevailed, that Ferdinand had 
not courage to continue his resistance. His 
craftiness would likewise induce him to think 
that Columbus had already done as much ser- 
vice as was to be expected from him, and that 
his withdrawment would at all events bring peace. 
He yielded, therefore, to the solicitations of the 
adversaries of Columbus, who were careful to 
present their requests in the most equitable form, 
and conceal their unconquerable animosity under 
the appearances of a strict justice. They only 
wished for inquiry ; from which Columbus, if 
innocent, as he represented himself, would come 
forth, not only with safety, but even with honor. 
They thus procured the appointment of a judge, 
invested with full powers, and therefore superior 
to the Admiral himself; and had a proper per- 
son been appointed, the bold Genoese, whose 
gifts were so far in advance of his age, would 
have been spared the cutting degradation to 
which he was subjected, and Ferdinand the 
blackest ingratitude of which he could have been 
guilty. It was right that the matter should have 
been brought to decision ; but if Ferdinand had 
desired, not just to be freed from the trouble of 
hearing accusations, designed by constant repe- 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 147 

tition to supply the lack of truth and honesty, 
but to procure a decision which should establish 
the truth, he ought to have taken the utmost 
care to send out one from whom, so far as ex- 
pectation may be founded on man, he might satis- 
factorily expect a decision according to justice. 
AAvful is the responsibility of those who possess 
power, be it in a higher or lower degree. An 
obligation rests on them to he just. Mistaken 
they may be, for they are men ; but no allow- 
ance is to be made for mistake where every pre- 
caution has not been taken to avoid it. 

The person appointed as Ferdinand's dele- 
gate — and for whose acts, if he were an impro- 
per person, and Ferdinand had not taken the 
utmost care to ascertain his capability, both as 
to talent and integrity, Ferdinand was respon- 
sible to his sovereign — was Don Francisco de 
Bobadilla. He was an officer in the royal 
household, and commander of the religious and 
military order of Calatrava. He was said to be 
a very religious man. Among the evil-doers 
in Hispaniola, who had ruined the colony, and 
were now seeking revenge on Columbus be- 
cause he opposed their indolence, licentiousness, 
avarice, and haughtiness, perhaps there was 
scarcely one who would not, at the appointed 
hour, recite the regular prayers. Fonseca, 



148 COLUMBUS. 

likewise, was a religious man. But the mere 
religion of externalism is no security for moral 
uprightness. With far greater appearance of 
truth, it is said that he was passionate and am- 
bitious ; and also, that though in exalted rank, 
his circumstances were needy. Whether all 
this could have been knoAvn before-hand with 
certainty, or not, most assuredly his subsequent 
conduct was precisely that which would issue 
from the development of these causes. He ar- 
rived at St. Domingo on the 2od of August, 
1500. Columbus had just put down a daring 
rebellion, and had felt himself obhged, by its 
character, to cause some of the leaders to be 
executed. Their bodies, suspended on a gibbet 
near the harbor, were seen by Bobadilla as he 
entered, and he immediately considered this as 
a proof of the Admiral's cruelty : in fact, he seems 
from the first to have regarded him as guilty. 
Even before he landed, complaints were made 
to him. Those who were most guilty, and 
therefore had the most to fear from justice, en- 
deavored thus to forestall its proceedings in 
their own favor. As soon as he landed, he 
proclaimed his powers with an ostentation of 
which only a weak and vain mind could have 
been capable. He had been invested with the 
power of governor, in case of the proved de- 



DISCOVERT OF AMERICA. 149 

linquency of Columbus. The day after he 
landed, without inquiry, except from the Ad- 
miral's foes, who had already gained his favor, 
and without having even seen Columbus, he 
caused his patent as governor to be proclaimed, 
and assumed the supreme authority. He took 
up his abode in the house of Columbus, who 
was then absent, seized on all his papers, and 
-disposed of all his property as if by legal sen- 
tence it had already been confiscated to the 
crown. 

The remainder may be anticipated. The 
officer who could act thus, was not likely to ob- 
serve any further forms of justice, nor to exer- 
cise his power with mercy. He arrested Don 
Diego, without stating any reason, put him in 
irons, and confined him on board a vessel in the 
harbor. As soon as Columbus arrived, he or- 
dered him also to be arrested, conducted to the 
fort as a prisoner, and likewise to be put into 
irons. Columbus submitted patiently to all ; 
but when the fetters were brought, the recollec- 
tion of his services, as well as his unbroken 
dignity in adversity, made every one unwilling 
to put them on ; and the hero of adversity stood 
waiting to be manacled, till one of his own ser- 
vants came forward to rivet the chains. Two 
fine pictures might be furnished by an artist 



150 COLUMBUS. 

capable of expressing on the canvass the mind 
as shown in the countenance. The first should 
be, Columbus on the prow of his vessel, looking 
toward the land, in the first glow of the morning 
after the night in which land had been dis- 
covered by the waving of a distant light, though 
darkness still veiled the long-wished-for object. 
The second should be, Columbus standing in 
the prison of the fortress, surrounded by those 
who had conducted him there, holding the fet- 
ters that they shrunk from fastening on him ; 
while, in perfect contrast with the nobility of the 
prisoner, would be seen the reptile meanness 
of the servant coming forward to bind him. 

Not even the dignified submission of Colum- 
bus could affect the soul of Bobadilla, who, 
judging of others by himself, seems to have be- 
lieved that his prisoner was awed by the dignity 
of his superior. Don Bartholomew, arriving 
soon after, experienced the same treatment. 
Vice had now obtained the victory ; and they 
whose conduct had occasioned the distresses of 
the colony, reveled in their triumph. Bobadila 
soon collected suflicient matter of Accusation, 
and Columbus, still in chains, was ordered to be 
taken to Spain. He went to the ship once more 
amidst shouts ; but they were the " shouts of a 
miscreant rabble, who took a brutal joy in heap- 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 151 

ing insults on his venerable head, and sent curses 
after him from the island he had so recently 
added to the civilized world."* The officer who 
had to convey him to Spain, Alonzo de Villejo, 
was in the employ of Fonseca — a significant cir- 
cumstance. He was a man, however, of honor- 
able feeling, and sought, by all the means in his 
power, to render the voyage as little irksome 
to him as possible. After they were at sea, he 
would have removed the irons ; but to this Co- 
lumbus would not consent. " I was directed by 
my Sovereigns to submit to Bobadilla in their 
name. By their authority he has put on me 
these chains, and I will wear them till they are 
by the same authority removed. I shall then 
preserve them as relics, and memorials of the 
reward of my services." He did so. They 
were hung up in his cabinet ; and his dying re- 
quest was, that they might be buried with him. 
When Columbus arrived in Cadiz, and was 
taken on shore in chains, a generous burst of 
indignation arose on every side, which soon 
spread throughout Spain. Not knowing how 
far his treatment was due to the orders of the 
Sovereigns, he did not write to them, but to a 
lady of high rank, who had been nurse to Prince 
Juan. To her he fully explained the whole case, 

* "Washington Irving. " Life of Columbus." 



152 COLUMBUS. 

justifying his conduct so clearly, and in such 
moving language, that when the letter was read 
to Isabella, her sympathy and indignation were 
strongly excited. The king, too, soon saw that 
his officer had not only gone too far for justice, 
but too far even for the public opinion of that 
day. Orders were sent off without waiting for 
the dispatches of Bobadilla, to release the pri- 
soner ; a large sum of money was sent to him, 
and he was directed to repair forthwith to the 
court. His reception there was as favorable as 
ever. When the queen saw him approach, still 
dignified, but mournful, and now evidently worn 
with both care and age, she burst into tears, and 
Columbus was subdued. The contumely of the 
upstarts, and the scoffs of the " miscreant rab- 
ble " of Hispaniola, his lofty mind had sustain- 
ed; but to see the weeping sympathy of his 
Sovereign, and that Sovereign Isabella, was 
more than he could bear. He knelt before her, 
and wept aloud : and for some time the strength 
of his emotions hindered all utterance. The 
Sovereigns encouraged him by kind expressions, 
and he was soon enabled eloquently to vindicate 
himself. They understood him well. Ferdi- 
nand saw through the whole ; but he was now 
resolved to be governed by his usual policy. 
Columbus should be honored and rewarded, but 



DISCOVERT OF AMERICA. 153 

not restored to his former official condition. 
The king began now to be aware of the true 
magnificence and value of the almost boundless 
field of discovery to which Columbus had led 
the way ; and he was unwilling to allow him to 
realize the honors and wealth for which he had 
originally stipulated, and the extent of which 
he was just beginning to understand. Indeed, 
he carried this so far, as that, in a subsequent 
conversation, he endeavored to prevail on this 
faithful and invaluable servant to exchange the 
reward previously agreed upon, for possessions 
and rank in Spain. He felt that Columbus was 
no longer necessary ; and the viceroyalty of the 
Spanish Indies already appeared to be an 
office to which some, even among the higher 
rank of courtiers, might aspire. And this point 
was soon decided. Not only the conduct of 
Bobadilla to Columbus, but his subsequent con- 
duct to the natives, demanded his recall. His 
own avarice suggested that this might be the 
case ; and he both acted accordingly himself, and 
exhorted his menial supporters to do the same. 
To collect gold by any means was their only 
object ; and to effect this, the natives were op- 
pressed, and the colony governed, worse than 
ever. Don Nicholas de Ovando was appointed 
to supersede him, and, in point of fact, to pos- 



154 COLUMBUS. 

sess the honors due by solemn engagement to 
Columbus. He was very different from his 
predecessor, but to the Indians he was a cruel 
oppressor ; and his conduct to Columbus was 
ungenerous in the highest degree. He sailed 
on the 13th of February, 1502. Two thousand 
five hundred persons accompanied him, some 
of them persons of rank, with their families. 
His powers were ample, and government ex- 
tensive ; and with a brilliant retinue, and thirty 
vessels, he left Spain for the New World. 

Columbus continued at home, a solicitor for 
justice. At one time, he conceived a project 
for the recovery of the holy sepulchre. At 
length, the arrival of Vasco de Gama from 
India, and the wealth which seemed pouring 
into Portugal, induced him to request that he 
might undertake a fourth voyage, in which he 
still hoped to arrive at Asia by sailing to the 
west. 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 155 

CHAPTER XV. 

A FOURTH VOYAGE, AND DEATH OF COLUMBUS. 

At last he obtained permission ; and having 
completed the necessary preparations, on the 
9th of May, 1502, he sailed from Cadiz, though 
with only four vessels ; the largest of seventy, 
the smallest of fifty, tons burden. His crew 
consisted of one hundred and fifty men. His 
object was to discover a strait by which he 
might pass into undiscovered seas, and complete 
the circumnavigation of the globe. He was 
forbidden to touch at Hispaniola ; and his own 
plan was to follow the coast from the Gulf of 
Paria, till he should arrive at the expected 
opening. He reached Martinico on the 15th 
of June. The leaky condition of his own vessel, 
and her unfitness to struggle with stormy wea- 
ther, obliged him to sail to San Domingo, hoping 
to exchange his vessel there for a better. Ovando 
refused to allow him even to land. A fleet was 
at that time ready to sail for the mother country. 
On board were several mutineers whom Ovando 
was sending home for trial. Bobadilla was re- 
turning, having succeeded in amassing immense 
riches. He had one large mass of pure gold 
which he intended as a present to purchase se- 



156 COLUMBUS. 

curity. Other adventurers had likewise taken 
on board large quantities of gold. One vessel, 
said to be the weakest in the fleet, carried about 
four thousand pieces of gold, the property of Co- 
lumbus, which his agent was remitting. Though 
repelled from the shores he had discovered, 
Columbus was not like his vindictive foes. His 
knowledge led him to anticipate the approach 
of a hurricane ; and he sent a message, stating 
his fears, and praying that the departure of the 
fleet, the wealthiest that had yet sailed for 
Spain, might be delayed. He himself took re- 
fuge in a place of as great security as he could 
find, some distance to the westward. In a day 
or two his prognostications were verified. A 
tremendous hurricane came on, and nothing but 
the precautions he had taken saved his little 
fleet from total destruction. In the mean time, 
Ovando, so far from attending to the warning 
thus kindly given, had hastened the sailing of 
the Spanish fleet ; and Bobadilla, with his ill- 
gotten riches, rejoiced to find himself on his 
way home. Scarcely were they well out to 
sea, when the storm came down in its fury, and 
the sailors were utterly powerless in the awful 
contest with the elements. Of the eighteen 
ships, only three or four escaped ; and these 
were so shattered as to be obliged to return to 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 157 

St. Domingo. The richest vessels foundered 
with their crews, and among them that which 
carried Bobadilla and his wealth ; as did also 
one on board which were two hundred thousand 
castellanos of gold, one half of which was the 
property of the crown. It is remarkable that 
the vessel containing the property of Columbus 
sustained the least injury, and that it was the 
only one that returned safe to Spain. It is not 
for man to speak as an oracle on such events. 
Our Saviour, in the case of the Galileans slain 
by Pilate, and those on whom the tower in 
Siloam fell and slew them, has forbidden all such 
rash decisions concerning the administration of 
the providential government of God. But, on the 
other hand, it is not to be forgotten that " there is 
a God that judgeth in the earth ;" and that there 
are occurrences in which " the Lord is known 
by the judgments which he executeth." When 
such wonderful coincidences are seen as that 
which has just been mentioned, the Christian 
will neither judge rashly, or without charity ; 
nor will he overlook the hand of God, but will 
bow with reverence and awe in adoration of the 
righteousness of the Lord God Omnipotent, who 
reigneth King forever. 

Columbus now pursued his voyage. He lirst 
arrived on the south coast of Cuba, and thence 



158 COLUMBUS. 

steering nearly to the south-west, he reached 
the mainland where Truxillo now stands, in the 
Gulf of Honduras. The inhabitants here told 
him of a country well cultivated, rich, and popu- 
lous, to the north-west. Never was he so near 
his great object as now. Had he listened to 
them, the discovery of Mexico might not have 
been left for Cortes. He was now on the north- 
ern coast of the Isthmus of Panama. Only 
once, and that not yet, was he within a less 
distance of the mighty Pacific. But he was 
prepossessed by the belief of a strait ; and for 
its discovery kept sailing along the coast, to the 
east and south. The weather became very 
stormy, and himself seriously ill, so that for 
some time he made little progress. The natives, 
at the different places at which he landed, he 
found more warlike. Various rumors induced 
him several times to send out exploring parties ; 
and he had sometimes severe contests with the 
Indians, in the course of which several of the 
Spaniards lost their lives. It is singular that 
he paid no attention to the rumors which would 
have led him to Mexico. Much gold, however, 
was collected ; and in the end of April, 1503, 
he arrived at the south-eastern extremity of the 
Isthmus, at its narrowest part, little thinking that 
by ascending the mountains in the iiiterior, the 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 159 

wide Pacific would have been seen rolling be- 
neath him. Here, however, his crews refused 
to continue the voyage. The ships were shat- 
tered, the men worn out with toil, and on the 
1st of May, leaving the mainland forever, he 
steered northward, and arrived at Cuba, where 
their vessels were found no longer seaworthy ; 
and Diego Mendez, one of the most intrepid 
and faithful of his officers, volunteered to en- 
deavor to reach St. Domingo in a canoe with a 
few Indians. Columbus was left for many 
weeks, during which his men mutinied, and a 
large party escaped in canoes : the remainder 
were so few and feeble, that the Indians began 
to grow negligent in supplying them with pro- 
visions. It was then that Columbus employed 
his astronomical knowledge to good effect, by 
predicting an eclipse of the moon, so terrifying 
the Indians, that they hastened to bring food in 
abundance. Eight months thus elapsed. The 
messengers of Columbus had had great diffi- 
culty in persuading Ovando to send a vessel for 
Columbus and the remains of the crew. It is 
to be feared that this bad man wished him to 
perish in his abandonment. At length, after 
many excuses, even at St. Domingo, indignation 
began to murmur at such black and shameless 
ingratitude, and Ovando was obliged to yield. 



160 COLUMBUS. 

A vessel was dispatched, and arrived at the 
wrecked and useless vessel, which, for nearly a 
year, had been the dwelling of the discoverer 
of America; and on the 13th of August, 1504, 
he arrived at St. Domingo, where Ovando re- 
ceived him with much apparent courtesy, but 
allowed him to exercise none of the powers 
granted to him by his original agreement with 
the Sovereigns. To the Indians, the conduct 
of Ovando was tyrannical in the extreme, and 
equally unjust to Columbus, who was hindered 
from collecting his own property. At length, 
subdued in spirit by the ungrateful treatment 
he received, on the 12th of September he left 
finally the regions he had opened to Europe, 
and, after a long and dangerous passage, on the 
7th of November he landed at St. Lucar ; thus 
concluding his last, and most disastrous, but yet 
not least important, voyage. 

Columbus, aged and infirm, might now have 
expected honorable repose; but his last days 
were filled with little more than afflictions and 
trials. The property in his possession had been 
expended during his last residence at St. Do- 
mingo, and in securing his return. Immense 
sums, indeed, were due to him ; but all the de- 
lays and obstacles that the Indian Board, over 
which his old enemy, Fonseca, still presided, 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 161 

could throw in his way, were employed to 
harass him. To crown all, when he arrived in 
Spain, his munificent and changeless friend, the 
Queen, was on her death-bed, and in three weeks 
from his landing she died. Well did he know 
the diiference between the selfish Ferdinand 
and the noble Isabella. By the cold-hearted 
Monarch all his applications were treated with 
indifference. He was referred to the officers 
of government, and personal enmity found am- 
ple means for seeming delay, and real neglect, 
in official forms ; and thus he who had opened 
to Spain the road to the wealth of the New 
"World, was suffered, after the services, labors, 
and perils of his life, and while suffering from 
disease, exasperated by anxiety and toil, to lan- 
guish in unrequited poverty. He employed 
various persons in unsuccessful missions to the 
court ; and among the singular events of the 
history of this great man, not the least singular 
is, that one of the persons thus employed, and 
of whom he speaks in one of his letters as " a 
worthy, but unfortunate man, who had not 
profited as much as he deserved by his 
undertakings, and who had always been dis- 
posed to render him service," was no other 
than the man from whose Christian name 
the regions discovered by Columbus have re- 
11 



162 COLUMBUS. 

ceived their permanent denomination, Amerigo 
Vespucci. 

All his eflforts were vain. In a brief interval 
of recovered strength, he visited Ferdinand, who 
received him courteously, and paid him with 
smiles and good words ! In making his will, in 
which his son Diego was declared his heir, he 
bequeathed, as to actual property, little more 
than large and most righteous claims, admitted, 
but never paid to himself, and only in part, and 
by compromise, paid to his heirs. 

His continued illness gradually undermined 
the strength that remained of his iron constitu- 
tion, after so many years of care and toil ; and, 
before long, he was laid on the bed of death. 
He paid to the last duties prescribed by the 
Church, of which he was a sincere and faithful 
member, the most devout attention. He died, 
aged seventy, at Valladolid, May 20th, 1506. 
The last words he was heard to utter were, 
" Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit !" 

He was first interred at Valladolid, and, six 
years later, his remains were removed to Seville, 
and deposited in the cathedral there, where Fer- 
dinand had no objection to erect a stately monu- 
ment to his memory. From this place, in 1536, 
they were removed to St. Domingo, where they 
remained till 1795 ; when, on the cession of His- 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 163 

paniola to the French, the Spaniards resolved 
that they should be transported to Cuba. The 
tomb was opened on the 20th of December, and 
the fragments of a leaden coffin, with hones and 
dust, were found, put into a coffin of gilded lead, 
and, after a solemn religious service the next 
daj, taken to the shore in an imposing military 
and ecclesiastical procession. A similar proces- 
sion was formed at Havana, to receive the 
coffin at the shore, and convey it to the cathe- 
dral, where it was deposited on the right side 
of the high altar. Contemplating his whole 
character, may it not be said, in humble faith, 
that there " his flesh rests in hope," awaiting the 
glorious resurrection to the life immortal, through 
our Lord Jesus Christ ? 



THE END. 



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